The Eyes Have It

Many an Argentine politico found his way through the doors of the big house on the Calle Suipacha last week. In a darkened sickroom little knots of them chatted briefly with their host, eagerly tried to gauge his strength and health.

None could say which were his friends, which his enemies. Some urged him to get back to work before it was too late. Others as insistently urged him to stay away till his rival had tied his own noose. Still more whispered furtively with his doctors, alternately prodded them for a medical decision which would keep him at home, or one which would put him back in harness. And as they left they talked among themselves: "He looks well, but his eyes. . . ." "He says when talking about the news, 'They were reading to me this morning.' "

But the intrigue and maneuvering which swirled through the Mansion Presidential accomplished little. Ailing President Roberto Morcelino Ortiz, one eye blinded with the diabetes which forced him out of office on sick leave, blinked and did nothing. Tough, leathery old Vice President Ramon S. Castillo was running the Government to suit himself, yet no one knew for how long. Argentina was still a country without a leader.

Political Primer. If the stalemate was ever to be broken, one of the two would have to crush the other politically. Most of Argentina's political intricacies can be understood in terms of their rivalry--the fact that in Argentina, as in the U. S. in the past four years, the President and Vice President are on opposite sides of the political fence. Though Argentina is split into as many factions as pre-World War II France, most of its politicians belong to one of two main groups: the Radicals of President Ortiz of the Conservatives of Vice President Castillo, behind whom stands the powerful figure of onetime President Augustin P. Justo. The Radicals have a New Dealish tinge; the Conservatives believe in government by the privileged and are traditionally pro-British.

Both are strongly nationalistic, their anti-foreignism sometimes even expressing itself in anti-U. S. sentiments which are misinterpreted as implying cooperation with the Berlin-Rome Axis.

Enigma in the Pink House. Roberto Ortiz, who may be the caudillo of his country if his health lets him, was on the point of accomplishing a revolutionary ambition when illness struck him down.

He was elected in 1937 as the candidate of Conservatives and dissident Radicals (of which he was one). The Conservatives winked at a plank in his platform promising honest elections, for they were used to winning by such practices as quarantining entire districts, placing voting booths in trucks which stopped only for Conservative voters, incapacitating opposition pollwatchers by sneaking laxatives into their food. But once settled in the Casa Rosada (Argentina's White House, which is pink), President Ortiz brought down the wrath of his Conservative supporters by taking his platform seriously. Honest elections might have perpetuated the Radicals in power if he had not had to leave the Pink House in ill health.

"El Zorro." If & when Ortiz' health forces the President's permanent retirement, control will pass to the man who stepped in as Acting President, a shrewd, hardbitten, 67-year-old Conservative politico whose nickname, El Zorro, means "The Fox." Ramon Castillo (pronounced castijo) became Vice President as a compromise candidate on Roberto Ortiz' ticket. When the President broke with the Conservatives and became the rallying point of Radical strength, Conservative strength gathered around Castillo and ex-President Justo. The Acting Presidency has given El Zorro a further chance to consolidate that strength and he has not muffed it.

Forty-two Votes. Of the 376 electoral votes that will determine the next Presidential election in 1943, 88 will be cast by electors from the Province of Buenos Aires. The next largest number, 42, will be cast by the Province of Santa Fe. Fortnight ago Argentines went to the polls in Santa Fe, to elect a Governor who as a matter of practical politics will control the choice of those 42 electors. When the polls closed, everybody thought the Ortiz candidate had won an easy victory. But a few hours later the Conservative-controlled election board announced the victory of the Castillo-Justo candidate.

Though the Province of Santa Fe broke out into a rash of angry rioting and gun fights, though the Ministry of Interior was swamped with protests, Castillo sat tight, the first round safely his. Ortiz, instead of sending a Federal interventor to insure an honest election as he did last March in Buenos Aires, sat tight too. If the Conservatives can repeat this week in the Mendoza elections, they will pick nearly enough electors to insure victory in 1943. If Ortiz lets them, the fight will be over.

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