The Waiting Game

A Lenten calm settled over Central America. At Costa Rican Junta President Jose Figueres' finca, which had recently rung with the none-too-rhythmic clump of marching Caribbean Legionnaires, silent peons spread coffee beans on the patio to dry in the warm tropical sun. The Legion was dead. It had been done in by the guile of its old enemy, Nicaragua's "Tacho" Somoza--and by the no-nonsense order of the Organization of American States (TIME, Jan. 3). The end had come before the Legion could fire a shot at Tacho or its other prime target, Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo.

In San Jose, tough Dominican Exile Miguel Angel Ramirez, who had led his ragtag Legion in the fighting that put Figueres in power just a year before, was bitter: "The ticos [Costa Ricans] have our guns now. They have no need for them now, so they've put them away in a damp cellar to corrode. That's the way they feel about us, too."

The Dreamer. In a Guatemala City boarding house, rancor spilled from another Dominican exile. Ex-Millionaire Juan Rodriguez, who had sunk his fortune into the Legion, blamed Figueres for "playing ball with other factions." With a distasteful glance at the litter of papers in his shabby room, he sighed: "I never thought I'd come to Central America. But to kick out Trujillo, I'd go to China, or Japan--or even to hell!"

Just a few blocks away, in Guatemala's green stone National' Palace, President Juan Jose Arevalo, once the Legion's staunch supporter, had also accepted its demise. He was still half-heartedly chasing his old dream of a democratic Central American confederation, but he had shifted to diplomatic means. The new approach involved cooing noises aimed toward Honduras and El Salvador. Inspired newspaper stories spoke hopefully of future meetings between Arevalo and Honduras' new President Juan Manuel Galvez, between Arevalo and the Salvadorean junta's Major Oscar Osorio. Guatemalan student delegations were hustled off to both countries to spread good will. Noting slight leftward turns by both governments, Arevalo exulted: "I don't have to paddle, I'm going downstream."

The Honeymooners. But Hondurans thought otherwise. Snorted a Tegucigalpa lawyer: "For a hundred years the chapines [Guatemalans] lived under tyrants. Then one fine day they found that they could leave the city without registering with the police, and now they're on a crusade to give everybody else freedom. They think they invented it!"

As a matter of hard fact, both Osorio and Galvez probably preferred hard-boiled Somoza to "Spiritual Socialist" Arevalo. But both were enjoying governmental honeymoons ("Glory to God in Heaven and Galvez in Honduras!" burbled a Tegucigalpa poster), and both were playing it cagey. They proclaimed their respective countries friendly to Guatemala "as to all nations," pleaded ignorance of any plans to meet Arevalo, and let it go at that.

At week's end, Arevalo seemed to have resigned himself to a waiting game. Discussing Somoza, the most he could muster was a wishful: "Tacho will be sandwiched between two democratic governments [Costa Rica and Salvador] until he completes his biological mission." That added up to peace, and that suited Tacho fine.

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