The Plot That Failed

The woman at the door would not take no for an answer. She must see Rosita Gonzalez de Claro, younger daughter of Chile's President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla. Finally, the servants let her in. "Senora Rosita," gasped Carmen Rosa Soto de Varas, wife of an Infantry School noncom, "I couldn't get an interview with your father ... Go right away and tell him the military want to overthrow him. I know it because my husband is one of them. He told me the whole thing!"

Two Big Fish. Rosita raced to La Moneda, Chile's White House. Carmen went home to tell her husband what she had done. He wasted no time on reproaches, hurried off to confess the whole business to his commander. Quickly the government rounded up 14 sergeants and corporals, opened a military court to investigate the affair. As the noncoms blabbed, the court arrested a group of army and aviation officers. Then it netted two big fish: elderly (71) ex-President Carlos Ibanez del Campo and Colonel Ramon Vergara Montero, retired air force chief.

Wily old General Ibanez, a 1927-vintage dictator, claimed that he had tried to dissuade the plotters, but nobody believed him. Vergara would not talk. A sergeant uncovered one factor with the naive testimony: "I thought the movement was only aimed to raise our pay." *

Last week, with the 29-day court investigation completed, most details of the conspiracy were out in the open. Ibanez had been the front man, Vergara the boss. The plotters had relied on three discontented groups: underpaid noncoms, impatient junior officers and out-of-power conservative politicos. The aim was to set up a military dictatorship.

Bits & Pieces. Vergara's stubborn silence blocked full inquiry into the biggest question of all: Who, if anyone, had inspired and financed him? But from bits & pieces, fitted together, Prosecutor Jose Nogues bluntly tagged the plot "Made in Argentina." Said he: "The subversive movement . . . was inspired from Argentina and intimately synchronized with similar movements in other Latin American countries."

The most damaging evidence was given by Carabinero (security police) General Manuel Alvear, who said that Argentine Consul Luis Zervino had warned him that Chile's situation was grave, that it could be mended only by a military government on the Argentine model. Zervino had told him that a revolutionary movement was under way and advised him to get on the bandwagon. Zervino had also said that the revolt might be headed by Ibanez or by General Jorge Berguno (now in Buenos Aires, a fugitive from Chilean justice).

Nervous Rash. Chile last week declared Zervino persona non grata. The Chilean press, handling the case with kid gloves, printed the court's findings without comment. The Argentine press broke out in a nervous rash of abuse.

To wind up the affair, Prosecutor Nogues recommended five years' imprisonment for Vergara, three years' banishment for Ibanez and fines of 50,000 pesos ($1,175) each. For the officers he asked lighter terms; for the noncoms, only two months' military arrest. At week's end President Gonzalez, who knows a danger signal when he sees one, was pushing through Congress a 20% pay raise for the armed forces.

*Military salaries take 26% of Chile's budget, but generals and colonels skim the cream. A private's pay is $145 a year. A lieutenant gets $480, and if he wants his commander's permission to marry must prove that his fiancee has her own income.

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