Boss of the GOU

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Argentines have been called "the Yankees of South America." But most Yankees of the U.S. know less about Latin America's most bustling country, its 13,518,239 people and the riches of its fabulously fertile "humid pampa" than they know about Novosibirsk.

Most Americans know even less about Argentina's government. They know little beyond the fact that it consists of a junta of military men whose bristling nationalism and thorny relations with the U.S. State Department have caused it to be known vaguely as fascist. The answers to two questions which might clarify the situation are obscured by the fogs of Argentine and Hemisphere politics: 1) In Argentina's ruling junta who is the strong man? 2) Is Argentina a Good Neighbor?

The answer to Question No. 1 is: Juan Domingo Peron. But who is Juan Domingo Peron?

Up from the Campo Mayo. One day last year Portenos (citizens of Buenos Aires) were alarmed by the regular thud of military boots on the Avenida General Paz, the rumble of moving caissons. From the Campo Mayo, Army headquarters, dashed truckloads of soldiers with machine guns. They converged on Casa Rosada, Argentina's Government House. In less than half a day the corrupt, unpopular, three-year administration of President Ramon S. Castillo was ended.

General Arturo Rawson became President, ruled Argentina for almost two days. While Portenos, and the rest of the world, looked on in some amazement, the Presidential guard was changed at the double quick, and swifter than the opening of a trap door, General Pedro Ramirez succeeded President Arturo Rawson.

Most Argentines were delighted. They hoped that even a succession of short-order Presidents would be better than dictatorial President Castillo. The U.S. State Department quickly recognized the new revolutionary regime. It hoped that Argentina would cooperate in the war against the Axis. But the U.S. soon realized that Argentina's new Government was, if anything, less cooperative than the old one. Argentines soon realized that President Ramirez was President in name only.

The real power in Argentina was a group of Army officers called the GOU.The initials stood for "Gobierno, Orden, Unidad" (Government, Order, Unity). But the GOU group was soon nicknamed "The Colonels." And it soon became clear that the Colonel of the Colonels was Juan Domingo Peron. He was Vice President, War Minister and Secretary of Labor and Welfare. If Americans had never heard of him, neither had many Argentines.

Up from the Chilly South. Juan Peron did not come from the aristocratic estanciero (big rancher) class, which has long dominated Argentina's politics and social life. He was born and brought up on his father's middle-sized ranch in the cold, windswept south--Argentina's Wild West. His early life reads like a Montana boyhood. He learned to ride almost before he could walk. For recreation he fought with the children of the hired gauchos, hunted wild turkeys on the southern pampas.

At 20 Peron was a full lieutenant--one of the youngest in the Army. For years he served as an instructor in military schools, taught military skiing on the Alpine runs of the Andes. In Army circles the word spread that Juan Peron was an unusually intelligent, alert professional soldier.

Onward Inspiration. In 1941 Peron returned from Europe, where he had made a study tour. He had been brushed by the wings of inspiration. Soon he was inspiring Argentine officers with what he liked to call a ''crusade for spiritual renovation." This proved to be a program for rejuvenating the Army by kicking out its more senescent generals--a crusade for which it is easy to inspire younger officers in almost any army. Behind the crusade appeared a new force--the GOU--which made its debut in Colonel Peron's garrison at Mendoza. Soon the GOU's influence had permeated the Argentine Army. The GOU's leading ideas were irresistible to soldiers: the Army was the purest, noblest thing in Argentina; it was the group best fitted to rule the country; it was the instrument of Argentine destiny.

In last year's revolution the GOU realized the first two of its ideals. Ever since then it has bossed Argentina. But its dictatorship is headless. For though Peron is the GOU's strong man, nobody, not even Juan Domingo Peron, really bosses the GOU, which remains a chaotic town meeting of military prima donnas. Hence Argentina, though dominated by its Army, has never developed into a typical one-man military dictatorship.

Peron had more influence than any other man with the spiritually renovated officers of the GOU. But, unable to count on the Army's invariable support, he was forced to become a politician. When his power was threatened, as it frequently was, by some other ambitious "colonel," he sought support in nonmilitary quarters. As president of the National Labor Department, he appealed to the workers, flattered them, forced their employers to raise their wages, improve their working conditions. He was even solicitous of farm hands--the lowest circle of Argentina's proletariat.

One of Peron's wiliest moves was his beguilement of the working press. Argentina's newspapers (La Prensa, La Nation, La Razon), traditionally free, frank and influential, smarted under the strict censorship begun by the Castillo regime. Instead of lifting the restrictions, which might have been dangerous for the regime, Peron forced the publishers to raise their employes' wages.

All might have rocked along well enough, had it not been for the third of GOU's ideals--the notion that the Argentine Army is an instrument of destiny.

GOU's sense of destiny was destined to fall foul of the suspicions of other Latin American countries; of the fact that Argentines have long believed that their special role is willy-nilly to defend the South American continent against the Colossus of the North; and of the fact that the U.S., engaged in a life & death struggle with the Axis, was lining up the Latin American nations on her side under the guise of the Good Neighbor Policy.

Onward Destiny. Together with Argentina's Government, Colonel Peron inherited Argentina's feud with the U.S. State Department. President Castillo had been a great Yankee-hater. Relations grew worse when Castillo was overthrown. Some of the new Spiritual Renovators looked not merely anti-U.S., but pro-Axis. U.S. newspapers began to cry that they were setting up a full-fledged Fascist state in the Western Hemisphere.

Last year Argentine Foreign Minister Segundo Storni, considered the most pro-Allied member of the Cabinet, wrote a naive letter to U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull explaining Argentina's position.

From good, grey Cordell Hull, Storm's letter wrung a masterpiece of glacial denunciation and bad judgment. Argentine nationalists raged at the insult. Storni resigned.

This lesson in Argentine psychology might have taught Secretary Hull the danger of scolding haughty Argentines. But Hull's letter to Storni was only one of a series of denunciations. Backed by no threat of action, they merely made the Argentines angry, bolstered the popularity of the Colonels' Government.

Secretary Hull decided to get really tough with Argentina. State Department sleuths reportedly collected evidence that members of the Argentine Government had been mixed up with the Nazis. The British captured a German spy at Trinidad, and on his person found proof to the same effect. Both nations threatened to publish their findings. Apparently frightened, President Ramirez broke off relations with the Axis.

Stronger & Stronger. For a while it looked like a State Department victory. But the State Department had not reckoned with Juan Domingo Peron. He put himself at the head of the extreme nationalists in the Army who felt that Argentine honor had been smirched because Ramirez had yielded to foreign pressure. Ramirez was forced to resign. Vice President Edelmiro Farrell, Peron's old friend and front man, moved up to the Presidency. Peron, stronger than ever, became Minister of War. The State Department's pressure play had simply increased Peron's power.

Beef and Britain. Instead of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, the U.S. had been shouting loudly to cover up the fact that it could not use its big stick, for reasons of Hemisphere policy. The Argentines refused to be bluffed. Short of armed force, about the only effective action against Argentina would be a joint U.S.-British embargo on Argentine trade. Britain was reluctant, for three good reasons. Argentines knew all three.

Britain needed Argentine beef and other products, which feed much of its civilian population and many of the Allied soldiers fighting in Europe. Even under far stricter rationing, the U.S. could not replace the Argentine supplies. The enormous British investments in Argentina ($1,287,005,000) were a hostage for Britain's continued inaction. Most important of all, Britain considers Argentina a very desirable trade partner. She produces what Britain needs and needs what Britain produces. Britain had sound reasons for not wanting Argentina to be drawn into the U.S. orbit.

In the Hemisphere Doghouse. Last June the U.S. State Department finally lost all patience with Argentina, withdrew Ambassador Norman Armour from Buenos Aires, where he had had no official relations with the Government since the accession of President Farrell. Britain obligingly followed suit. So did most of the Latin American nations. Argentina found herself in diplomatic quarantine, recognized only by Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Ecuador among Hemisphere nations.

But a month ago the hand of Juan Peron was seen again. Argentina made a clever move. She asked the Pan American Union to call a conference of Hemisphere Foreign Ministers to hear and judge her case. Foreign Minister Orlando Peluffo offered to prove that, far from betraying her Hemisphere neighbors and helping their enemies, Argentina has complied with all the requirements of Hemisphere cooperation. But he made one proviso--the conference, if held, must not discuss Argentina's internal affairs.

How Fascist? But Foreign Minister Peluffo's proviso once again rubbed the sore spot in U.S.-Argentine relations--how Fascist is Argentina?

The prosecution could make out a case. The Government of Farrell and Peron was certainly not democratic. It acquired and held its power by military force. There had been no elections. Congress was closed down. Political parties had been driven underground. The press, though supposed to be free since last July, never attacked the Government. Labor unions had become stooges. The Communists had never been an important factor in Argentina, but many so-called Communists (mostly labor leaders) had been whisked away to unpleasant, distant prisons.

The defense could argue that these were the unfortunate commonplaces of old-fashioned Latin American dictatorships. Most of the characteristic stigmata of Fascism were missing. There was no official party. Anti-Semitism was less intensive than might be expected in a nation whose middle class had felt the competition of many refugee Jews.

There were spies and informers; civil servants might lose their jobs if they criticized the Government. But there was no glorification of brutality. Some Argentines might be afraid to talk politics with strangers, but many openly damned the Government up & down.

Moreover, the GOU Government had become less Fascist-flavored. Pro-Fascists were maneuvered from office by Peron. Now, the most important Cabinet members next to Peron were the Minister of the Interior, Admiral Alberto Tessaire, and Foreign Minister, General Orlando Peluffo. Neither has any perceptible Fascist taint.

Lately Peron had gradually done many of the things which the State Department demanded. He tightened up on Axis spies, kept closer watch on Axis nationals. He suppressed German-language newspapers, put German business houses under effective control, recognized the U.S. Black List. But, even if he had wanted to, he dared not move too fast toward reconciliation with the U.S. The extreme nationalists might do to him what he himself had done to Ramirez with their assistance. Perhaps to head off such a reaction, Peron had redoubled his efforts to build up a strong Argentine Army. Last week he even proposed to institute a health program for small children preparatory to conscription.

Argentina's demand for a hearing would probably be lost in a maze of diplomatic acrimony. Mexico had already denied her plea. Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela had consented--and had had their faces slapped by the U.S. State Department, which wants no open hearing. Many Latin diplomats believe that the system of inter-American consultation has been done to death; that the Good Neighbors were deeply divided, would split into fragments. In this sense, Peron had won again.

Meanwhile Colonel Peron and the proud Argentines were exhilarated, most Latin Americans were secretly (or openly) delighted, and even some North Americans were amused to see the brat from the Rio de la Plata stand up and sass back the Colossus of the North.

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