Seven-Point Cornerstone

Seven-Point Cornerstone

As another man might smack flies, big-fisted General Augustin P. Justo smacks Argentine revolts, bosses Congress (down whose retching throat he recently jammed Argentine adherence to the World Wheat Pact) and generally has fun. Last week neither the sudden discovery that agents of the Radical Party had perfected plots for a "general uprising," nor the sudden illness of Vice President Julio Roca could make President Justo change his plan of rolling up to Rio on a battleship.

Smack--General Justo's police pounced on 23 ringleaders in the Radical plot, called it "completely crushed." Smack-- the President brushed aside an elaborate public ceremony at which he was to have turned over his powers to the Vice President before leaving Argentina. Since Roca was sick, let him stay in bed. A brief decree, signed without ceremony by General Justo at the last moment, gave bedridden Roca proper power. With bands blaring, banners flying and two regiments escorting him as a guard of honor, President Justo stepped aboard his special train at Buenos Aires and sped out to the seaport of Mar del Plata (where coast guardsmen last January rescued the President from drowning). There he stepped aboard the Argentine dreadnought Moreno and she rolled up toward Rio de Janeiro 1,500 mi. north.

In Rio hospitable Brazilians rushed to completion two triumphal arches for their Argentine guest, a big arch 95 ft. high on which colored lights played all night and a cosy little arch. Short, rotund President Getulio Dornellas Vargas of Brazil has recovered from the motor accident in which he broke both legs last spring (TIME, May 8); he was up in the Graf Zeppelin last week circling Northern Brazil, flew back to Rio just in time to send out several battleships and 60 Brazilian naval planes to greet President Justo in whose further honor Brazil printed commemorative postage stamps.

To small Host Vargas big Guest Justo brought an amazingly all-inclusive seven-point program for action this week. The A & B Presidents planned to: 1) sign a non-aggression treaty previously negotiated by their foreign ministers; and then discuss: 2) stimulation of Argentine- Brazilian trade by preferential tariffs; 3) A & B co-operation to stamp out smuggling; 4) mutual assistance in preventing South American revolutionists from hatching plots against their President on the soil of another country; 5) cultural interchange between A & B; 6) promotion of A & B tourist travel; 7) "encouragement of aviation."

All this they expected to crowd into General Justo's five-day visit, also attending Argentine horse races, motor races, the Buenos Aires Inerouzonicbnnar and a big banquet every night. At the first banquet Guest Justo keynoted "international solidarity," Host Vargas "peaceful co-existence."

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