Solution Without Blood

A heavy, slit-eyed man with an unshaven, greenish face got out of a plane one afternoon last week at the San Antonio, Tex. airport. Behind him trailed five swarthy followers only slightly less formidable-looking. The first man was Mexico's onetime President and longtime Boss Plutarco Elias Calles, who had just been forcibly exiled from Mexico by President Lazaro Cardenas. Sick, sleepless and broken, the 58-year-old exile turned on newshawks an impressively bitter face:

"General Rafael Navarro and three policemen came into my bedroom at midnight where I was reading. I was not surprised. I said, 'I am at your orders.' General Navarro said solemnly, 'By order of the President of the Republic you are under arrest. . . .' I got out of bed and said, 'I consider myself your prisoner. I have no forces at my disposal and I do not need them. You may take me in an airplane or before a firing squad. . . .' General Navarro replied, 'I request you to prepare to accompany me at 6:30 to the Central Airfield.'"

Thus departed Mexico's strongest Strong Man since the late Dictator Porfirio Diaz.

Plutarco Elias Calles roared into Mexican politics in 1920 as one of the "Sonora triumvirate" of Obregon, de la Huerta & Calles which overthrew and assassinated President Carranza. Calles, a superb executive during his four years (1924-28) as President, built up a potent political machine. After Obregon's assassination in 1928 he could afford to put in a Presidential puppet, Emilio Fortes Gil, and invent the National Revolutionary Party, a tight Fascist organization with a highly Socialistic program of paper promises for the people. Calles and his henchmen unionized Mexican labor, attacked the Catholic Church, quietly amassed huge fortunes, trained an oversized army.

General Lazaro Cardenas was to be another Calles puppet as President of Mexico. But at last the Party had found a man who sincerely believed in its program. Impassively, almost imperceptibly, prim-faced Cardenas undercut Calles by giving the people some of the things Calles had promised them. When, last year, Calles suddenly tried to crack down on his man, he found that Cardenas had sewed up the loyalty not only of the peasants and workers but of the Army as well.

Of the man who had proved stronger than Strong Man Calles, the exiled Mexican said last week: "I have always considered General Cardenas a just, honest and sound man but the moods of Cardenas change from day to day. If there is anything that can save Mexico now, it is for labor and the middle classes to organize and fight Communism. . . . But right now Mexico is a boiling caldron of dissatisfaction. I blame Cardenas for my exile. I will spend the remainder of my life resting. I hope to find peace in California. . . . I had nothing to do with the bombing of the Vera Cruz train [see p. 66]. If the Government had thought so they would have executed me, not exiled me."

The old man drank a bottle of soda. Presently he and his friends boarded a plane for Dallas.

In Mexico City President Cardenas soberly manifestoed: "I desire to depart from the lamentable precedents which exist in the history of our bitter political struggles and in which frequently little value has been placed on the principle of respect for human life. Therefore I considered the circumstances demanded, as imperative for the public welfare, the immediate departure from national territory of General Plutarco Elias Calles, [onetime Minister of Industry and Commerce] Luis Morones, [onetime Minister of Agriculture] Luis Leon and [onetime Governor of Guanajuato] General Rafael Melchor Ortega." With this group of Calles men went also Calles' secretary and son Alfredo.

For Mexico, where such impossible situations are usually solved in a welter of blood, last week's solution seemed remarkably well-mannered.

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