Sneak Punch

In midmorning, shrilling sirens in San Jose brought the people of Costa Rica's capital out into the streets. Just nine days after Costa Rica had disbanded its army, the country had been invaded from Nicaragua by supporters of banished ex-President Rafael Calderon Guardia. Costa Rica's provisional government, headed by Colonel Jose Figueres, called the nation to arms, got set to fight for its life.

The first serious clash was in the northwest, at the town of La Cruz (pop. 2,000), where an advance column of attackers from Nicaragua with jeeps, mortars and automatic weapons routed the 15 customs guards in the local garrison. Figueres estimated the invasion spearhead at 800 to 1,000 men, of whom about 100 were genuine Costa Rican exiles. The rest, he charged, were Communists, mercenaries, and a hard core of picked troops from Nicaragua's Guardia National.

Whose Affair? Nicaragua's Dictator Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza affected bland surprise: "I'm told Calderon Guardia invaded Costa Rica--but that's his affair. We're guarding our frontier." Actually Calderon had issued his revolutionary proclamation in Managua, Tacho's capital. Dissident Costa Ricans had been training openly at Rivas in southern Nicaragua. Costa Rican intelligence sources reported concentrations of troops and barges at San Juan del Sur on Tacho's Pacific coast and Bluefields on the Caribbean.

Tacho had chosen his side in Costa Rica during last spring's civil war. With angry frustration he had watched Figueres'

Army of Liberation (with arms and advisers lent by the Caribbean Legion) boot out Calderon Guardia and his motley following of extreme rightists and Communists. Tacho never forgot the Legion's real aim: destruction of such Caribbean dictators as Honduras' Carias, Dominican Republic's Trujillo, and Tacho himself.

Wait & See. At week's end an uneasy calm settled over the invaded area. The government was moving its hastily reorganized forces northward but avoiding battle. Presumably Calderon (and friend Tacho) hoped for an anti-Figueres uprising within Costa Rica. Meanwhile they awaited international reaction to their adventure.

In Washington, Costa Rica promptly invoked the newly ratified .Treaty of Rio de Janeiro (for hemisphere defense), and presented its case at a special meeting of the Organization of American States. Nobody needed to be told that if the Costa Rican trouble dragged on, it might easily develop into a general Caribbean conflict.

On the telephone at San Jose, Figueres, apparently confident, wasted no regrets on the premature disbanding of his army: "A people is much harder to conquer than an army . . . We're not a bit worried."

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