Exile's Rest

In Mexico City last week, they buried an old man who had tried to disguise his 72 years with a comical, bobbing black beard and dyed black hair. His name was Leonardo Argueello, and only 30 mourners followed his body from the funeral parlor on the Paseo de la Reforma to the Spanish Cemetery on the city's outskirts. That was not many for the ex-President of Nicaragua whom thousands damned last January when he took office as a stooge of Dictator Somoza, praised last spring when he cut loose to give Nicaragua a brief moment of honest government, mourned last May when the dictator deposed him.

Argueello's death in exile had its measure of victory. The fight against Somoza would go on. Most American nations would continue to refuse diplomatic recognition to Bad Neighbor Somoza. For his few months of defiance, Argueello himself might even become a symbol of freedom.

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