Refreshments at Montevideo

The presidents of cocky little Uruguay, big Argentina and bigger Brazil have been exchanging goodwill visits for a year. Last fortnight Brazil's Getulio Dornelles Vargas called on Argentina's Agustin P. Justo (TIME, June 3). Last week Vargas went on to Montevideo, with his wife & daughter, to visit Uruguay's smart, stolid President Gabriel Terra, who runs a firm dictatorship over the most up-&-coming people in South America.

President Terra hastened to ask President Vargas to forget any silly rumors he may have heard of an anti-Terra plot. President Vargas effusively assured his host that he knew the rumors to be ridiculous. However, the bomb explosions that nightly interrupted Vargas' sleep in Montevideo made the visiting President uneasy. On the third day the two presidents and their womenfolk went to the races at Montevideo's Hippodrome. The jockey club president invited them upstairs to the buffet for a glass of Yerba Mate. At the head of the stairs they were met by onetime Nationalist Deputy Bernardo Garcia. He pulled out a gun. Somebody jostled his arm. A shot plunked into President Terra's shoulder. The crowd knocked down visiting President Vargas; his daughter fainted; an officer slashed the assassin over the head with a sabre. President Terra, followed by his guests, walked pleasantly out to his car, shouted, "They failed to kill me. Long live the March Revolution!" Hearing only the last and unaware of the shooting, the crowd affably took up the slogan they recognized. "Long live the March Revolution!" Later Dictator Terra presented the bullet to his distinguished guest.

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