Good Air & Bad

Drifting foully across nearly every South American capital, the dread fumes of scandal left by the U. S. Senate's munitions inquiry settled most heavily last week on Argentina's Buenos Aires. Frantically officers of Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. cabled the city of Good Air that nothing was ever said to justify an implication that commissions had been offered to Argentinians or accepted by them.

Same day Argentine Foreign Minister Carlos Saavedra Lamas cabled his Ambassador in Washington instructions to sue the U. S. Government for reparations for besmirching Argentinians' reputations. Holding that the U. S. Government was responsible for the actions of the Senate committee, he purported to show that a libel had been committed and "moral & mental damage" inflicted. In effect, he demanded that U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull discipline Washington's Senator Homer T. Bone for speaking carelessly of Argentina's Admiral Ismael Galindez. Protesting "our friendship for that great nation with which we have recently strengthened an old relationship," the Foreign Minister asked for copies of all documents concerning Argentine munitions activities and promised the U. S. any similar documents Argentina finds.

Nothing could have surprised Minister Saavedra Lamas more than what happened next. Far from sympathetic, the Argentine Press turned savagely on him. La Prensa ridiculed the logic as well as the law for such a suit as he proposed: "No reputation has suffered. . . . On the other hand, an important advance has been made in exposing one of the chief factors which leads to the crime of war."

Meanwhile in Washington Secretary Hull was politely explaining to Argentine Ambassador Felipe Espil what an invulnerable personage a U. S. Senator is, how far above "disciplining" by the State Department he really is. One of Minister Saavedra Lamas' secretaries announced: "The Argentine Government does not desire to make further issue of the matter, especially as the Senate committee is showing a tendency to prevent a continuance of the reckless, sensational and unfounded charges."

A false peace descended when, finally, the Argentine Judge Advocate General announced that a thorough investigation had cleared all Argentine army officers in dealings with Curtiss-Wright.

The only hitch was that the U. S. inquiry had given new courage to the minority members of Argentina's two-year-old munitions inquiry committee. The majority had already moved to quash the findings on the ground that the guilty officers who had been stationed as a munitions purchasing board in Europe had long since been dealt with in military and civil courts. Last week Minority Senator Mario Bravo uprose once again and began making charges, far worse than anything the U. S. Senate committee had aired.

He charged that General Jose Belloni, head of the European purchasing board, had shared in at least $60,000 commissions paid his dentist-nephew. Alberto Jonchi, by Colt Co. Few doubted the nephew had been paid. Senator Bravo read letters to prove that the brave uncle had been paid too.

Sitting in his place in the Senate Chamber, Minister of War General Manuel Rodriguez listened, turned red, then white with anger. Finally he broke in: "If I were Belloni and guilty of what's been charged here today, I would shoot myself tonight." But General Belloni was still alive next day to tell a hastily summoned court of honor, composed of four fellow generals, that he was not guilty. Four days later the Argentine Senate voted, 17-to-4, to bury the investigating committee's munitions report, safely in the Senate archives.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.