Senor & Senora

While Argentina's Ramirez Government went its lone unneighborly way, the Argentine's longtime Ambassador to the U.S., suave Don Felipe Alberto Espil, remained a Good Neighbor. He and his Chicago-raised Senora had made the red-carpeted Argentine Embassy a model of diplomacy. Last week Buenos Aires called them home.

Senor. Ambassador Espil, 56, is sometimes called the "Mona Lisa of the Pam pas" for his thought-concealing smile. He first came to the U.S. in 1919 as first secretary to the Embassy, London-tailored, expert at the tango, an escort of Wallis Spencer years before she became the Duchess of Windsor. But Don Felipe was no mere tailor's dummy. He studied the U.S. and its economics. By 1931 he had become Ambassador, and in the next twelve years operated smoothly on friction-fraught issues.

Senora. Don Felipe also spent 14 of his years in the U.S. waiting for the hand of Courtney Letts, a tall, dark-haired, slender member of Chicago's onetime "Big Four" of socialite beauties. Don Felipe first courted her in the '20s, but she married two wealthy Americans first. Finally, three weeks after her second divorce, Courtney Letts Stillwell Borden became Senora de Espil, who in turn became one of the world's ten best-dressed women, and an able diplomat herself.

Her previous marriages handicapped her in the salons of Buenos Aires' Roman Catholic society. But she learned Spanish, became a Catholic, and took such an interest in Argentine history that she now writes articles on the subject.

Substitute. The Ramirez Government will replace Senor Espil with Adrian Escobar, a stranger to the U.S., but well-known as an opportunist. Once considered pro-Franco, Escobar is at least certain to be safely pro-Ramirez.

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