"Good Night, Sonny"

It was just after 7 in the evening. Francisco ("Panchito") Grana Garland, 45, boss of Lima's ultraconservative La Prensa, manager of a big pharmaceutical business, had had a long day at the office. "Good night, sonny," he said to the porter, and headed toward his car. A moment later six shots crackled in the street. The porter got out in time to see a sedan turn the corner. Grana lay mortally wounded at the wheel of his car.

The murder of Editor Grana, scion of one of Lima's 60 reigning families and bitter editorial enemy of the dominant Apra Party, touched off the biggest political crisis since the Apristas came to power two years ago.

Since 1945 La Prensa had stood on the editorial opinion that fanatics who had spent 16 years in illegal activity would never be fit to govern Peru. When Apra Leader Victor Raul Haya de la Torre put three Apristas in key Cabinet posts, La Prensa helped stall their projects for raising the social and economic level of Peru's 4.000.000 Indians. La Prensa also fought the Apra plan to get Standard Oil cash for these plans in return for oil concessions.

Hardly a man in Lima heard the news without thinking at once of another assassination. Eleven years earlier Antonio Miro Quesada, editor of the powerful, conservative Comercio, had been shot and killed in the Plaza San Martin. That time an Aprista had done it.

This time? Published comment was guarded. Now the Apristas were not only a lawful party but Peru's most powerful.

And only recently, in deference to La Prensa-led opposition, they had put off the controversial oil deal till July. To place themselves beyond suspicion during the investigation, the three Apra Cabinet ministers resigned, thereby causing the Cabinet to fall. Apra's La Tribuna offered a $3.000 reward for the murderer.

At week's end President Juan Jose Luis Bustamante Rivero appointed a military Cabinet to tide over the crisis.

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