"The Health I've Lost"

Perhaps the week's most significant Argentine development--more important in the long run than the abortive revolt --was the disclosure, on the day of the uprising, of something that had been a guarded secret: Eva Peron is gravely ill.

For more than a year rumors circulated that Evita suffered from anemia, but the terrific pace of her public life belied the reports. A fortnight ago doctors announced that she was in bed with influenza. She was so ill on the day of the revolt that she was given a blood transfusion and not told of the uprising until it was over. Then she insisted on speaking over the radio from her sickroom at the presidential residence.

Sobbing, she thanked her descamisados for standing by the President, and asked God to give back "the health I've lost." It was the voice of a different woman--weak, strained, husky. Afterward an announcer, weeping, read a hastily composed communique stating that Senora Peron was suffering from advanced anemia. At week's end she was given more transfusions. Her recovery, it was announced, "will take a long time."

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