The Tamborini Ticket

The opposition named their man last week.

At last the Argentine man in the street and cantina had someone to shout about besides Strong Man Juan Peron. The new Democratic Union presidential candidate was Radical ex-Senator Jose P. Tamborini, a porteno (citizen of Buenos Aires) and ex-physician who makes a meager living translating French and Italian authors. He has a weakness for handsome books, spends hours in Buenos Aires' swank, Goya-lined Jockey Club library.

Yet strapping, 59-year-old Jose Tamborini is no intellectual recluse. He is exceedingly popular as a politician, and his man-to-man geniality reminds some of Wendell Willkie. No totalitarian, Tamborini has fought its virus in press and parliament for years.

Taxicab Sense. Despite Juan Peron's demagogic bread-&-circuses campaign, Candidate Tamborini might have a chance --in the,unlikely event that the elections were free. The average Argentine was just mad enough at the rocketing cost of living and the gnawing sense of general unrest to give Tamborini a try.

The Radical case: small business wanted normalcy, and Tamborini meant peace; big business was fed up with share-the-wealth decrees; some labor elements suspected Juan Peron's kept unions, well remembering how many workers the Strong Man had jailed. As for the election-timed 30% pay boost for labor (judged by some to have gained Peron a cool million votes), a taxi driver answered that one: "We earn more," he squawked, "but we spend more. It doesn't make sense."

This week the anti-Peron front scheduled a mighty mass meeting for Buenos Aires' Plaza de la Republica. It would be Tamborini's first campaign test, very possibly a test of just how bravely democrats would stand up to dynamic Juan Peron.

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