Switch

Argentina's two top diplomats switched jobs last week. In as Foreign Minister went Jeronimo Remorino, 48, succeeding Hipolito Jesus Paz, 34, who took Remorino's former post as ambassador to the U.S.

Remorino has been called the Ribbentrop of the Peron regime. A handsome bachelor who studied law at the University of Paris, he has seen much more of the world than most Peronistas. After the war, he set up European operations of Argentina's FAMA airline, then returned to run the Argentine Postal Savings Bank. Named ambassador to the U.S. in 1948, he played a notable part in swinging a $125 million U.S. loan to Argentina. He also caused something of a feminine flutter among Washington's smart set.

Far more than the boyish-faced Paz, Remorino is a power in the Argentine government, a sharp, vindictive hand at bureaucratic intrigue, and a trusted counselor to Evita Peron. When he thinks the Perons are making a mistake, as in last winter's closing of La Prensa, he does not hesitate to say so. In his new job, he can at least tell the Perons what the U.S. is likely to think of some of their authoritarian antics.

The man he succeeds never sought the Foreign Minister's job at all. An ardent nationalist intellectual with good family connections in the Peronista Party, Hipolito Paz asked Peron one day in 1949 to make him vice consul in Mallorca so that he could write a novel there. Peron, having just sacked overambitious Foreign Minister Juan Bramuglia, was at that moment in the market for a Foreign Minister of a more unobtrusive type. He picked Paz, who has made a modest success in the job as a 100% loyal Peronista.

The father of two little girls, "Tuco" (Glowworm) Paz plays the guitar, dances to flamenco tunes, likes bebop, reads Faulkner and Dos Passes. He is the author of a prizewinning book of short stories (The Abyss), detective yarns, unpublished poetry, three volumes on Argentine government and law, and some of President Peron's most flowery speeches. During the recent Washington conference of Foreign Ministers, Paz managed to make quite a few hemispheric friends without alienating Peron. Despite the bruising that capital correspondents gave him over the La Prensa issue, he took such a shine to the U.S. that after he got home he asked Peron to give him the Washington assignment.

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