February 16, 1946

189

and omd that the members, generally, favored civilian

control. Then he hustled down to the White House far
a,conference with :President Truman. H e laid the .facts
on the table and tactfully suggested that now was the
time for the President to make a clear-cut statement on
his position.
It came like a bolt out of the blue to the army crowd.
In a l e t t a t o Senatm IMCMahon M i . Truman said:
( 1) The atomic-control commission should be composed
exclusively of civilians. ( 2 ) The govemmentrmustr be
the exclusive owner and producer :of fissioDable materials. ( 3 ) It is essential that devices utilizing atomic
energy be made fuUy available fur private development
through compulsory, non-exdusive licensing of Frivate
patents, and regulation of royalty fees to -insure- their
reasonableness. (4) Xegislatiun must assure genuine
fseedom to con&& independent^ research and guarantee
&at controls Over &e dissemination of information will
nat stifle sdemtific~research..( 5 ) The fpropused) commjssion .shuuld b e in a ,positian to carry out at once any

internationa1 agreementsrelating to inspection, control

of production, dissemination of information, and similar areas of international action.
The T,mman letter and the smooth maneuvering of
Senator McMahon have put &e Groves men on the spot.
They cannot obby openly agaimt t?he McMahon bill.
Their propaganda campaign to revive the aMay-J.ohnsun
bill, which even Mr. Johnson refers to sheepishly as bhe
so-called MayJohnson bill, has been sipped i n the
bud. What :is left ifor them is undercover sniping. And
there is always, as a Jast resort, khe possibility of putting
pxessure on President Truman to name right guys to
the atomic commission;
The Resident left t h e door wide open in his ,letter,
While h e said the commission should be compsed of
civilians, h e inserted m e dangerous sentence, This
should not be interpreted ,to disqualify former military
personnel from membership. Leslie Groves, . civilian,
is mot likely to &ink differently from Major ,General
Groves. The batde ;has not been won.
I

-4

BY STANLEY ROSS
Correspondent for the Assorided Press in Bzrenos Aires from 1943 bo 1945. M r . Ross
haS also writtetz on Argenfiina for Colliers, the American, and other muga-
Luzes.

NLESS something unforeseen happens to prevent it, Colonel Juan D. Perbn will be elected
President of Argentina on February 24. And he.
will remain d e r of thzt rich nationuntil ejected by;
death or revolution.
Against Perbn are thefour main democratic partiesRadicals, Socialists, Progressive Democrats, and Communists, the Radicals alone controlling a majority of the
nations votes under 3 fair ballot. Against him, too, are
the greater part of the middle class, the students, ~probably th,reelfifths of organized lxbur, and those vested interests of Argentina whiah are not controlled by German
or British big business. But it will take more than even
this formidable combination of interests to oust Per&,
for the Colonel is a &earless and resourceful man, determined to win the election by ballots or bullets.
JuanPerbn must not be mistaken fur justanother
Latin American dictator wieh a nickle-plated personality
and an ironclad conscience. He is providing safe haven
for a band of international bankers, munitions makers,
cartel directors, and warmongers Who have transferred
theirheadquarters
fromtheformer
Axis capit+ to
,Buenos Aires, togetherwiththeir
fortunes, formulas,
and blueprints. At home Perbn issuppopted by an armored police force as powerful as the army, by the

Cabholic church, and by the political caadillor who -for

sixteen years have counted votes their own way, or never
bothered to count them.
Perbn first appeared on the international scene when
he was Argentine military attach4pin Chile. One night in
1936 police ,broke into his apartment in Santiago and
turning over British and Chilean military
caught
secrets to a German agent. He was expelled from.CI.de,
and to his chagrin learned later that the secrets, for
wh,ich he had reputedly paid 70,000 pesos, were spurious
anyway. The incident, however, did not ruin his career;
in 1939 hisgovernment attached him to theGerman
army, and fur two years he stamped over Europe, goosestepping into Paris with the conquering Nazis. Then he
returned home tu plan t h e seizure of his own government and lay the basis for a group of Nazi-dominated
governments in Latin America.
This plan is still in effect, sponsored by the same influences which numred Hitler andMussolini-the Krupps,
Fritz Thyssen, Fritz Mandl, .I. G. Farben, Siemens, Sofina, vast enterprises with semi-autonomous branches all
over the world. These interests, -with a cache of seven
billion dolars of war loot hidden or invested in Argentina, cann0.t afford tohaveP e r k uverthrown at the p l l s
or anywhere else.

The NATION

190

Perbn ha5 kept Argentina on &e verge of civil war

since he returned from Germany in 1942 and founded
a secret lodge of some fifty colonels and majors lcnuwn
as the G. 0.U. (Group of United Officers). Its program
was to replace the moribund sinecuristgenerals and
corrupt, fraudulent politicans. Its secret statement of
aims, written by Per6n one month before the lodge
seized the governmefit, outlines 0 plan for conquest and
coalition that would make Argentina the ruling nation
of the continent. The struggle of Hider in peace and
war shall be our guide, runs one of bhe slogans.
For nine months a,f,terthe G. 0. U. became the government Perbn allowed President Pedro P. Ramirez,a
colorless general, to get the grit out of bhe political machinery.But his innate craving for rec6gnitionfinally
causedhim to stepoutfrom
behind the Presidential
&air to a position in front of it. On one occasion he
modestly said, I take orders from President Ramirez. I
am merely a soldier. A week @er, scenting a Ramirez
plot to seize actual power,he pounded his chest and told
reporters: This is the government of the G. 0. U. and
I a m the G. 0. U.! hmy desk I have the signed undated
hignations of 3,300 of the armys ,3,600 officers, and
the others do not makter.
This incident followed Argentinas diplomatic rupture
wi,th &e Axis,
on January 26, 1944. Per& had vigorously
opposed the break until the United States South Atlantic
fleet moved ominously into the La Plata estuary; he then
reluctantlyconsented.But when he learned @hatRamirezs Foreign Minister, General Albert0 Gilbert, was
planning economicmeasures against the Germans in.
Argentina, he staked furiuusly into the Foreign Ministry, drew his sword, and ran Gilbert out of the building and the Cabinet.
Deprived of Gilberts support, President Ramirez
made a desperate attempt to oust the G . 0.U. On the
afternoon of February 25 he ordered the resignation of
War Minister General Edelmiro J. Parrell and of Fartells assistant, Perbn. Farrell obeyed. Perbn did not.
Instead, he fixed the Presidents messenger coldly with
his eye and said, Inform the unhappy ones who sent
you that they will never get me out of here alive!
That night six uf Perhs generals burst into Ramirezs
study, p s in hand, and forced him to sign over his
powers to Perbns g a w b puppet, General Farrell.
Sincethen Perbn has been boss. Deftly he maintains
his power and plays off his enemies against one another.
He has flirtedwith capital and labor, with the moderates,
the conservatives, and &e leftists, and all along has been
in close contact with the Nazis. He has brewed elaborate
plots causing Cabinet convulsions by which sixty ministers were cast out in twoyears. When he realized &at he
could not-gain f u l l controi of the army, he began to sap
its strengbh, building up the Buenos A i r s and federal
police forces, famous for their brutality. The mechanized
police, reinforced by countless discharged soldiers, num-

bas 40,000 and is a. compact organization; &e army has

been cut to 60,000 and is spread over the country.
Furthermore the army is controlled by the Condor Legion,
a Nazi-trained Gestapo through which P e h n learns of and aborts incipient revolts. Among its advisers is Major
General Hans Steudemann, who fle,d from Berlin as the
Allied armies approached4teudemark is one of a
group of German officersnow working for Per6n under
Argentine names w i h citizenship papers to match. This
1
powerful police force stood Perbn in good steadlast
October, when his own ranks were so weakened 6y his
treatment of the army that a group of youthful officers
forced him out of his ufour Cabinet postsand jailed him

for ,two days. Wibh the aidof the police Perbn escaped
and announced his candidacy for bhe Presidency.
Today, with mutiny still festering in &e army, and the
country threatened with civil war, P e r h is detefimined
to remain , d e r of Argentina. He has risked his life
many himes in the past forby years ;to get within striking - .
distance of his goal, and I do not think he will be removed alive.
~

PRIVATE LIFE

Perdn was born fifty years ago on the estancid of his

father, a geologist and pioneer settler in bleak and icy
Patagonia. As a boy he fought the local Indian youths,
broke wild broncos, lassoed ostriches and wild animals
with She gauchos bolrrr. He forded icy streams in subzeroweather,
then racedagainst the wind until his
bombacbas froze stiff. At sixteen he was sent to military
college, where he-was an indifferent student but a crack
soldier. His classm,atescalled him h e man who invented work.
As a sublieutenant Perbns trigger temper and-criticism
of armyred tape brought him before a court martial,
where he had to prove he was not a Communist. Only
the knowledge that he was fencing champion of the
army, a title he held for sixteen years, restrainedhis
fellow-officers from challenging him to drequent duels.
A first lieutenant at twenty, or a decade he was shunted
about among the less desirable posts of the interior until
he was admitted to the Superior \Var College. By 1929,
as acaptainat.tached t o the General St&, Per6nhad
become a serious student of tactics, avrading &e fancy
of General Wihelm Faupel of the German army.
Generd Faupel had been sent to Argentina in 1911 .
by the German General Staff, which even then was planming eventual conquest ofLatin America. Faupel became
in turn secretary to the Argentine Inspector General and
a general in the Brazilian, Chilean, and Peruvian armies.
It was Faupel who later persuaded Franco to start the
Spanishcivilwar,promising
German aid, and it was
Faupel who in 1930 piloted hmis disciple, Inspector General Jose Felix Uriburu, into the Argentine Presidency
in a revolutionthat set the pattern for army dictatorships
throughout Latin America during the thirties.
Faupel at the time helped Per6n become A s s i s t a n t

February 16, 1346

Minister -of War in the Uribura Cabinet-the same job
Per6n took when his G. 0. U. case to power bhirteen
years later in an almost exact: repetition of the Uxiburu
revolt. Under Faupels guidance Per6n became instructor
in military history and strategy at the Superior War Cdlege. H e wrote two textbooks so smacking of the Prussian
strategist Clausewitz, whosk On War was h e military
bible of the Junkers, that he has been acpsed of plagiarism. In one book Per6n concludes that war ,is an inevitablesocial 6henomenon; in the other h e defends
Germany in athe First World War, blaming the United
States for . h e Kaisers defeat and urging Argentina to
insure United States neutrality when Argentina eventu,ally p
e
s to war. During peace time, he said, the country must have ,the acmy of its politics or the politics of
its army. The politicalaspirations of a nationare as
strong as the armys,powerto achieve them. He advised
preparation not for war in general but for a particular
war.
What particular war Per& is preparing for is hard ,to
,.say, although ,he has for ,the first time in -Argentinehistory fortified the Ghilean border and has stationed troops
along the Erazilian frontier. When,the G. 0. U. came to
power in 1943, Argentina had an army of 50,000 men,
a large ,but outdated navy, and an air force with fifty
first-class planes. The military budget that year had been
only 260,900,000 pesos. In 1945 Perbn spent 2,000,000000 pesos on the army,swelling the national budget
from 1,525,000,000 to 3,550,000,000 pesos to do it. In
the early months of 1945 the armycontainednearly
100,000 men, and 120 factories are todayproducing
weapons from German blueprints.
Even the -40,000,000pesos collected by .public subscription for the victirnsof the earthquake Thich destroyed .the mountain city of San Juan in January, 1944,
were diverted to Perhs arms program. The Gelonels
been so
campaign for aid for San Juanresidentshad
intense that people referred to Ithe city as San Juan de
Per6n. Later the stories changed tone. One relates that
when the actressEvaDuar,tecame
home ,one day she
.found a mink coat on herbed. :Now what saint in
heaven could have brought this? she exclaimed. Pec6n,
behind the curtains, stuck out his head and replied, San
Juan.
The Colonel has just ended a two-year afaiye and ten
,years of widowerhood by marrying the twenty-six-yearold Eva and moving her into a mansionnearRuenos
Aires, where a pair of society spinsters are teaching her
ithe manners of a first lady of the land. Until &e marriage Per6n and Evitaoccupiedseparate apartments in
the same .building in a middle-class section of Buenos
Aires. Per6n still keeps his home there-a modest, airy,
five-xoom apartment which he shares with his daughter,
Maria Inez, and an ancientha1.f breed housekeepernamed
Kotning, who raised Per6n as a child ,in Patapnia.
Per& isvery fond of his nineteen-year-old daughter,

3-31:
who, like his bride, is an auburn-haired .beauty. He usually lunches with Maria ha at the apartment, with
Maria herself waiting on the table, singing aloud and
chatting gaily.
The Colonel leads a brisk life. He jumps out of bed at
six, exercises for half an hour, and reads the m a i l and
newspapers, finishing them while being driven to his
election-caqpaign offices in Buenos Aka.There h e sheds
his tie and jacketandworksfeverishly
until 1:3Q, interviewing,
dictating,
scanning
documents,
pqeparirilg
speeches. A $ p lunchand a short siesta at the apartment
h e works untiiP q 10 p. m. and if he has nu speech to
make or meeting tb attend, takes papers home m d goes
on working until long after midnight. Busy as h e is, he
always manages t o look impeccably groomed, &is dark
hair combedback,b,is nails manicured. Women a&+re
his physique-six feet tall, a stocky 210 pounds-his
winning smile, and his flashing black eyes; his face is
mund with a sharp nosehandhigh forehead. Menadmire
him for his horsemanship, boxing, skiing, and fencing,
and most people are influenced bjr his concentrated
speech, firm voice, .and well-chosen.words,which he
underlines with voice and hands.Foreigners like him
<&cause he enjoys a joke on himself, which is refreshing
in a country where people take themselves seriously.
Per6n has gone to extreme lengths to increase his
popularity. He eaters difty neighborhood cafes andshares
mheapred wine and badjokes with workmen; he even
attended funeral xites for a laborer killed in ,an antiPer6n demonstraeion-a brave act though he was surrounded b y scores of plain-clothes men.
-~~

COURTSHIP OF LABOR

The Colonels courtship of l a b r has alternated with

mass arrests, torture and imprisonment of labor leaders,
abolition of,unionswhichrefused ,to cooperate. Now
t h e old labor organizationshavedisappear,ed into the
underground, leaving only Pertins Labor Party.The-Colonels skill , i n undermining apposition, together with the
emergence sf the industrial workers as a major,political
factor, will give .himan important $lock of v o t e a n February 24. The 400,000 industrial workers in Argentina
in 1930 have become 1,000,000, of whom perhaps 40
per centare devoted ,followersof Per6n while the &hers
hate him blindly.
Per6ns labor campaign is coached byFritz Mandl, exAustrian munitions magnate with arecord of .applied
fascism which culminated in the massacre of -the Vienna
Social Democrats in February, 1934. Mandlssubtle hand
can be seen in the case of Jcse Tesorieri, secretary of the
union of government employees, ,who was jailed in October, ,1943, because he signed a petition a k b g the government to breakdiplomaticrelations
with Germany.
After five months .ofsoftening-up treatment in the Villa
Devoto polltical ,prison, while his family lived en charity,
Tesorieri was released and restored to h i i s job on .condi-

d92

The NATION

clothes police, were obliged t~ attend; the crowd was

&ion,that he speak far Per6n at pubIic meetings. He told
ringed
by two cordons of uniformed police.Especially
a Eriend $thathe had intended it0 flee !&e country as soon
large was the representation from the manufacturing city
as released but that his family was hostage. From conof Avellaneda, adjoining Buenos Aires, whose political
stantly repeating praises af Per6n he has apparently beboss, Alberto Barcelo, head of the citys labor and graft
gun to 8believewhat he says and has tried hard to get his
rackets,
has thrown in his lot with Per6n. (In one Avel
friends in &e Railroad Brotherbod to jump on the
laneda district Barcelos men do not even open the ball&
band-wagon.
boxes. They prepare substitute sets of stuffedboxes and
The railroadmen have been Per6ns toughest labor opI
merely burnthe genuine ones when the polls close.)
pments. Th e y apAfter wild demonstrations for their favorite, the crowd
plauded his promises
paraded thmrough the ckpitalshuubing the phrases the
of higher pay and
nationalists had drummed into their ears for the past
bonuses but dmnpingly defeated h i s
bwo years: Argentines yes; Yankees no! Death to the
Jeys! Perbn yes; Braden no! rMate yes; whiskey no!
candidates i n lth e
brotherhood elections
But well coordinated as are Perdns meetings, his
in favor of a slate of
principal weapon is the organized disorder, so reminiscent
unknown l a b o r e r s
of ihe Nazis, that rears its head every t h e democratic
whom he had hhought
elements gafher in the public squares. Small disturbances
harmless enough to - start in the suburbs and spread toward the center of the
allow to enter the
city, increasing in violence until they reach the meeting
race. The Colonel set
place. There armed youths of the Nationalist Youth Alaside h e elections,
liance fire from roof tops or public buildings into the
Per&
charging ithe winners crowd and cause such confusion that the police find it
were Chmnunists and
expedient to iinish the job by speeding trucks through
&odd be jailed. When new elections were held, with
the square, spraying the people with tear gas, and .having
only Per6ns men as candidates, the voters shunned the
mounted men ride ,them down wi,th sabers swinging. It
polls so generally that Per6ns men did not get enough
took only 200 arm,ed Peronistas to break up the Demvotes to legalize their appearance on the ballots, and a
ocratic Union rally of 200,000 on December 8, when
date ofwrite-ins-thistime
real Communists-carried
dour persons were killed and forty injured.
the election.
OPPONENTS AND SUPPORTERS
Per6ns thick-skinned Secretariat of Labor then circuThe opposition to Perdn is disrupted by such tactics
lated a huge embossed bo& with blanlcpages for the
200,000 .railroadmens signatures to a statement thankand further handicapped because its only cohesive force
is its dislike of the Colonel. Peronista agents, plentifully
ing the Glonel for his beneficence to organized labor.
The book came back without a single signature, word
supplied wibh money. for bribes, have even wormed their
having been passed khat if Per6ns few admirers in
.way into the nation-wide democratic underground, Patria
the brotherhood signed it, thq would wish they hadnt.
Libre. The milikarybranch of Patria Libre, the MoviDespite his t a c k Per6n has given labor advantages
miento de Liberaci6n Nacional, has been all but deits anion leaders never gained in decades of campaignstroyed by the Condor Legion.
ing. He has decreed minimum wages and decent living
I n the election Per6n will be opposed by a rather
conditions for agricultural workerswho for centuries
colorless ex-senator mmed Jos6 P. Tadmrini, whose
have lived in Ifeudal peonage; wbite-collar workers, news- backing b y the four major parties has deeply impressed
papermen, shop girls, and factory hands have obtained
the army. Many officers are angered by Per6ns alliances
raises, vacations, and healthful working conditions. The
with the political bosses whose corrupt prackices he had
most recent decree, ordering all concerns to raise wages
assailed in rallying officers for the revolution: His bids
approximately 30 per cent, was received wirh
wild acclaim
for labor support have alienated many others, for most
by even these workers who hate bhe Colonel. It has beofhcerscome from the landowning families. They are
come a prime campaign weaipon of the Labor, Party,
m w concernedover his plan to confiscate and divide
created to sponsor Per6ns candidacy.
among the peons the 80,600-acre e.rtan.& of Rubustian0
The Labor Party launhed its campaign on Decem,ber Patron Costas, standard bearer of the Nation21 Demo14, 1945, before 100,000 persons gathered armnd &
h
e cratic (conservative) Party. Patron Costas was to have
obelisk in the center of Buenos A,ires. The meeting wu
been the Presidential candidate of &helanded oligarchy
a masterpiece of organization. Factories were closed at
just before the G . 0. U. .took over. And alihough the
&e suggestion of the police, d fleets of trucks and
conservatives are not included in the Democratic Union,
buses transported workers to the appointed place. Some
they are strongly opposed to Per6n. Last
month the party
40,000 gwermnent empl,ofrees, hduding 10,000 plaincharged that themilitary government was spending pub-

1
1

Febmary -16, 1946

193

lic funds and using p o k e power in an open political

.that he stands for the defense of their interests against
campaign for the Colonel. It proved that bhe government
cummuism. A year ago he invited leading capitalists to
printing presses were turning out propaganda wxitten by a !banquetb b i d for their aid. But when .their spokesmen
Per6n:s fuur hundred publicity men, all on the public
flatly said he was a greater menace than the Argentine
pay roll.
brand of communism, t h e Colonel broke up the dinner
But it is doubtful whether these conservative officers
by shouting, It do.esa.t matter .if you 0.r the p p l e m e
can counterbalance -the strength anddetemination of
against me! Z have created security lor the workers, .and
Per6ns backers-though one young captain among them
I have double security for myself-an army of 100,Oo~
told an ofkcers meeting he would persondy kill P u b
men. Who can get me out of the g o v e r n - e n t Who dares
if the elections were not honest. P e r h is supported by
sta& a revolution? You say you have 95 per cent of the
President Farrell, long on &e pay roll of the German .people? Well, I have- 95 per cent of the army. If you
Club; Yice-Fxesident Juan Bistarini, whom Hitler decothink you can overkhr.ow my 95 per cent with yours, I
dare you to try it!
rated with the Order of &e German Eagle; Chief of
The following week 862 of Argenthas 937 business, Staff Carlos van der Bedce, brother of the chief Nazi
.agent in South America; and Police Chief Culonel Filbanking, industrial, and agricultural associztions ,published large advertisements excoriating his regime. The
.omen0 Velasco. Every one of these four men has spent
Colonel retasted with a clamp-lhe press censorship and
a t least tiyo yeam with the-Germ+namy.
, Velasco, most rabidly Nazi of them all, has a reputaopenly boasted that the army and khat crha great artmy
of 1 & 0 r d could crush any insurrection.
tion for cruelty and falseness; it is said of him that Ihe
Probably Per6ns .most sincere statements were h q s e
uses Lies as women use perfume. At t h e very momkllt
he made on the .eve of the G. 0. U. revolution. The army
,that police were breaking into the home of the last university restor still at liberty, he was blandly telling newsunder him, be said, would become the instrumentlof
Argentinas destiny, conquering by force of arms what
papermen &at no rectors were being arrested. On the
Jose de San Martin, father of Argentine indepndence,
.same night i n October the editors of La Prema and La
Nacion were &so dragged off to jail, as were two former
failed .to win by persuasion. Alliances would de fie .next
step. We .already have Paraguay; we have Bolivia
Fa-eign Ministers, one of them Carlos Saavedra Lamas,
and Chile.With Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and ParaguayD
winner of the 1336 Nobel :pesce prize.
it will be easy to exert pressure on Uruguay. These five
The t r u b h is that V.elascr, and Per& are:beginning to
nations will easily attract Brazil, because of its form of
fear the public temper. Revolutions are born of hunger
government and the large nucleus of Germans. Brazil
and misery,,and there is little hunger in overfed Buenos
fallen, the South American continent willbe-ours! The
Aires, but beneath layers o materialistic fat the Argen,people, he skid, knust be inculcated with the necessary
tines are a brave and liberty-loving people. Since last
spirit through books, radio, press, and schools, with the
September, when half a million people marched past the
loilaboratiun of the ,&urch.
War Ministry chanting Death fio Per6n, the Colonel
Starting with the SchOOlS, the armmy ,regimehas glashas watched popular feeling rise, and h e is racing against
tered the b l a c k k i d s with nationalistic slogans, and
time to get the elections over.
more than a year ago Per6n ordered all children over
WHAT KIND OF RULER WILL HE MAICE?
twelve -tohave military drill and instruction in nationalIf Fer6ns plans are successful, what can be expected
ism. School children are required daily to recite such
of him as a ruler? One cannot tell from what he says. H e
slogans as The Fatherland is always right and :Argencallsfhimself a liberal but in the same:breath asserts, My
tina for Argentines only. Per& paints a picture of
government is one,of might, not light. He fought like
-world conquest so .enticing that already many patriotic
.a madman against a diplomatic break with the Axis durboys worship him as fanatically as the German youh did
ing thewar, yet a week later said t o a -friend, The Allies
Hitler. They sing his anthem, The Fourth of June,
are going to win this war, so we ,might as well make
and wear his emblem, n black condor with -wings out.friends with them.
stretched, almost a counterpart of the German eagle.
In trying to obtain Radical Party support he promised
The Catholic church has been successfully wooed with
*to restore civilian government, but on the same day he
aJdecreethat Catholic religious instruction shall be,given
sent to G. 0.U. members Secret Memorandum No. 10
in the schools by priests, a practice eliminated from the
-assuring themthe axmy would l w p - i t s h s h poiitical jobs.
public-school system fifty years ago when Argentine edPatria Libre published this memorandum in an underucation was reorganized along lines drawn by {Hotace
ground newspaper,.and Perbn, purple with rage, anMann. As War :Minister, Per6n has commissioned the
mounced to the G. 0. U., If I .find ?he oficer who reVirgin Mary and a dozen &her Saintly Virgins as full
leased fiat memorandum Ill have him shot!
generals in the ,A,rgentine army. Their images are dec,Flirting with Argentine big business, Per6n has as-orabed with the insignia of their rank, and every soldier
sured t h e Stock Exchange and the Agricultural Society
who passes a chur& containing one of the brass-bedecked
I

..I

The NATION

194

continent. Uncle Sam, he added, had even given six

statues must hak and salute. The ecclesiastical authorities
gunboats to Paraguay, a tiny but warlike country without
-have publicly announced their support of Per6n and ina seaport.
structed the people to vote against candidates of the
Per6n said fiat Brazil, Chile, and other neighboring
Democratic Union because it includses the Communists.
states are have-not nations. They lack the what, cattle,
Per6ns speeches read well. They could be set to marand fertility that make Acgentina so prosperous. If they
tial musiceasily, and dailymore people beat time t o
are armed while Argentha is defenseless, he argued, &e
them. Before the nation enjoys luxuries and palaces,
temptation might be too great. IftheUnited States
he shouted over @he networks,we must make sure that
guaranteed
our frontiers, he slily said, we would not
not one single Argentine is rejected for army service for
have to arm. But you wouldnt do that, so Argeitina
malnutrition. We are famuus for improving the breed
must be prepared for defense.
of cattle, sheep, and horses. W e should have improved
All this may be true, excep,t that Per6n is not prepar.
because if we must oppose
&e breed ofmen
ing
for deense.Heis preparing, in his own words, for
foreign ambitions, men, not cattle, will do the fighting.
a particular war-an
aggressivewar.
And-he has
A,rgentina must show those who have ambitions of conpawned Argentinas future income lor a decade to store
quest that to enter bhis land they will first have to kill
up #enough weaponsto keep an army of 200,000 men in
fourteen million Argentines!
Per6n tries hard to make Argentines fear Brazil and
the field for two years. His facturies have the blueprints
for those terrible weapons that Germany was about to
the United States as a means of rallying the peoplebeproduce when the war in Europe ended. One of the
hind him-?he device
used SO effectively by dictators in
plants which the Argentine army bought frum Hermann
Europe. When I spoke with him before leaving Buenos
G6ring last year. is reported to have &e German plans
Aires, d f6und it dfijcult to combat bhis &titude in &e
Ifate Olf our war-timepolicy of sending lend-lease weapons lor the atomic bomb. Whether or ,notthis Is true, Perchs
army is strong enough to cause considemble damage in
to the rest of Latin Armerica. Per6n said the United
the
soabherncontinent,where, &e Colonel says, those
States had helped Argentina> neighbors build a ring of
who believe in lasting peace are ntopian dreamers.
steel around his counltry, while refusing to sell arms for
If ,the Argentine strong man becomes Argentine
cash to Argentina because it maintained its traditional
President next week, the situation in South America will
policy of neutrality. You gave Brazil the weapons for
a pcwsful amy, upseking &e bdmce of power iz the . continue io be dymiiitc-x iirmkxa.

. .,

BY IDA TREAT;
r

;4n AmericdB writer who has lived hz France f o r many years; author of
The A m b o r e d Heart
Paris, {mzaty 30

Y COBBLBR in &e rue du Bac said this morn-

ing that he knew why General de Gaulle had

left the government. Lts because of the m q u i s
2.t~Mdrschal-the people who were yesterdayfor Pktain.
They @hid hes their last chance. As an honest man, he
coul,d!ntstand for bhat!
That comment, among all the comments on the Generals departure, was a new one, but I understuod what
&hecabbler meant. I too knew recen,t converts to Gadlis,m, advocates of the strong hand in politics and deadly
opponents of the parliamentary regime. But J also knew
others of the same ilk who hoped privately that his going
might help to discredit the Assembly-the left Assembly
a n d give a new swing to &e political pendulum at the
Mayelection,s.
That any part of &
h
e reaction shguld have rallied to
General de Gaulle is less significant than &e attitude of
some of his former companions who today are saying,

however regretfully, Perhaps it is for the best. Perhaps

he has finished his job, and it is time for others to take
over. Few would have gone that far last November.
Of all this the General himself 1s perfectly aware. For
all his celebrated aloofness, he has a pretty keen grasp
on what is ,Wking place around him. And certainly he
is far more sensitive to the defection of his friends than
to the questionable, doubly questionable,changeof heart
on the pact of a fraction Of his former adversaries. I remember once in London-I think it was during one of
the strained situations that arose out of h e North African muddle-someone said to him, Even if the Americans and the British let you down, you have France
behind you. And General de Gaulle replied drily, and
proudly, T e s t le contraire qui maurait dCsol6.
At the time all France thatcounted was solidly behind
him, and he knew it. Secure in that certainty, he could
confront criticism with equanimity. He stood for France.
Ti,mes have changed. In 1946 he was no longer corn-