Who's a Totalitarian?

The trick of squaring the new U.S. anti-Communist law (TIME, Oct. 2) with hemisphere policy kept the State Department in a swirl last week. One provision of the law requires State to refuse visas to "totalitarians." Did that mean supporters of the strong-arm regimes which run such good neighbors as Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Peru or Venezuela?

While State's lawyers stewed, one indignant yelp arose from an area where the shoe might pinch. In wrathful comment on a New York Times story which raised the question of Argentina's "totalitarian" President Peron, Buenos Aires' die-hard Peronista daily La Epoca bellowed: "Such newspapers should not have the right to print, even on toilet paper, such libelous information [against] . . . a nation which is leading the world in the art of liberating people from Communist infection . . ."

Before the outcry grew any louder, State hastily worked out a makeshift compromise. All those whom the Times described as "undeniable totalitarians" --whatever that meant--would be barred from the U.S. But a distinction would be made between citizens of a "nominal" totalitarian government, and individuals whose aim it is to overthrow the U.S. government. That still left all borderline cases up in the air. But it was the best that State could do--at least until Congress returns in November for another look at the law.

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