Crack Down

Fiery President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, who as senator used to throw inkwells at congressional foes, last week threw the whole desk at his onetime Communist friends. In so doing, he gave the New World's loudest answer to the Communist manifesto, issued in Poland last fortnight (see INTERNATIONAL).

When Chile elected Gonzalez President last year, Communist votes gave him the margin of victory. To show his gratitude, he named three Communists to Cabinet posts. But middle-of-the-road Gonzalez soon tired of playing footie with the Reds. When Communists took potshots at his administration, he angrily shouted: "The Communists cannot separate me from the people," accused them of treachery, threw them out of the Government.

On the Trail. From the moment Gonzalez took office, he suspected his Communist allies. Acting on a tip from Buenos Aires, Government agents put a watch on Yugoslav Minister to Argentina, General Ljubomir Ilic, who came to represent Marshal Tito at Gonzalez' inauguration. When Andres Cunja, a Yugoslav long resident in Chile, was named chief of the Tito diplomatic mission in Santiago, agents followed him, too. Gonzalez kept quiet about what they reported.

When Communist-led miners struck last fortnight (TIME, Oct. 13), Gonzalez Videla sensed a Red plot to disrupt his country's economy. Announcement of the rebirth of the Comintern, the day after the strike began, set off an explosion.

Bum's Rush. At 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Foreign Minister German Vegara called Cunja to his office, accused him of Communist plotting, handed him his passport. Government police hustled him to Los Cerrillos airport, where a plane was warming up to take him to Argentina. While Cunja was being told off, detectives knocked at the Hotel Carrera suite of Dalibor Jakasa, secretary of the Yugoslav legation in Buenos Aires, who had been in Santiago for only a few days. Jakasa was booted out, too.

That night Gonzalez' press secretary called in newspapermen. The Government statement noted the rebirth of the Comintern, accused Cunja of plotting against Chile's independence and meddling in its internal affairs. Visitor Jakasa was pictured as an instruction-bearer from the Yugoslav Minister in Buenos Aires.

The Yugoslavs, said the Chilean Government, were key agents of the new Communist International. Furthermore, the Communist party's Latin-American section was out to persuade Latin countries to join the Soviet bloc, attack the continental defense policy. Direction of this ambitious scheme came, Chile said, from headquarters in Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina.

Give & Take. Soon trans-Andean telephone wires were humming. Gonzalez spent an hour telling President Peron about the plot. Peron quickly sent to Santiago for more details. When Cunja and Jakasa deplaned at Mendoza, Argentine police hustled them away. Peron's Government announced that both would return to Yugoslavia.

The next move was Yugoslavia's. Belgrade broke diplomatic relations with Chile, said it could not do business with a country whose foreign policy was dictated by an outside power (meaning the U.S.). Santiago gave it right back, said the break was O.K., pointedly added that the only Yugoslav official in Chile had already left the country.

For the moment, Soviet Ambassador Dimitri Zhukov was still in Santiago, but many a Chilean thought he would not stay long. Two days after the Yugoslavs got the gate, his windows were peppered by machine-gun bullets from unknown attackers. Chile promptly expressed regret. The Soviet Union just as promptly called the shooting "a shocking infringement upon diplomatic immunity." Gonzalez Videla was moving into the big time.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.