After Ten Years

Ten years ago, a group of Argentine army officers staged the "colonels' revolution" that brought Juan Peron to power. Since then, yanqui-baiting Dictator Peron has become the most familiar Latin American figure to the U.S.--and in some ways the most alarming. How is Peron doing after a decade in power? Last week TIME's Buenos Aires Correspondent Ramelle MaCoy reported:

The casual visitor to Buenos Aires is not likely to see many outward signs of a police state. The people are well fed and well clothed, and the look on the faces of afternoon strollers on Calle Florida is not one of misery. But the police state can be evident, even to the casual observer. One Saturday afternoon late last year, some engineering students threw a handful of anti-Peron leaflets from an upper-story window on a busy downtown street. Within 15 minutes, ten plainclothes policemen had arrested everyone caught reading the leaflets. Thirty-nine people were jailed.

Since the army's abortive revolt in September 1951, the country has been, by presidential decree, in a "state of internal war." While this does not affect the ordinary businessman or worker who keeps his mouth shut, it has a very real meaning for people suspected of being enemies of Peron. It means that the police may legally arrest any resident of Argentina and hold him indefinitely, without ever bringing any charge against him. (There are now an estimated 80,000 cops in Buenos Aires alone; New York City, with a population nearly three times as large, has 20,000.) While in jail at the "disposition of the executive," political prisoners are treated reasonably well. In "interrogation" sessions, however, police often use torture. The accepted procedure is to strap the nude victim to a marble table, douse him with a bucket of cold water, and prod the eyelids and other sensitive parts of the body with a hot electric wire.

Psychological forms of torture are also used. This month a released political prisoner reported that in front of his cell block, in view of some 40 prisoners, a pair of bloody, severed human hands was left lying all one day on a piece of newspaper.

Fear & Bread. Fear pervades all levels of Argentine society, from cabinet ministers to cab drivers. Argentines have learned never to discuss politics on street corners, in restaurants or in the presence of strangers, servants or children. Fear often saves Peron the trouble of taking overt action. The once great independent newspaper La Nacion theoretically is still independent. But in practice the editors of La Nacion know that if they should print one or two outspoken editorials, the paper would be closed.

Why do the people stand for Peron? One answer is that Peron moves in easy stages. After each new encroachment on their rights, the Argentines accept the situation rather than force a showdown which, they fear, would cost them even more of their rights. Recently vandals, protected by Peron's police, burned Buenos Aires' famed old Jockey Club and destroyed priceless art treasures. Some of the club members demanded that the club close down its race track in protest. Cooler heads argued that this might prompt the government to nationalize horse racing. As a result, the board of directors adopted a "realistic" position, trooped dutifully off to assure the Minister of Interior that the club would not close its track. Last week Peron's Congress nationalized horse racing.

Another reason why the people stand for Peron is that there is no hunger in Argentina. One of Peron's driving emotions--and this helps to explain his virulent anti-Americanism--is his envy of the industrial U.S. and a desire to imitate it. To finance the industrialization scheme, he bought his farmers' wheat and meat at controlled prices, sold them on the world market for whatever the traffic would bear. Too much of the money ended up in grafters' pockets, uneconomical industries or pipe dreams such as the projects to build atomic bombs and jet fighters. According to government figures, which Peron has been anxious not to make public, Argentine cattle is down from a postwar high of 41 million head to about 27 million.

The agricultural recession has begun to spread to industry and business. Workers are finding it harder and harder to get jobs, while they pay more and more for everything from meat to movie tickets. But it is still fairly common to see a day laborer broiling his lunch--a thick, juicy steak the size of a dinner plate--over a fire in his wheelbarrow. After two bad drought years, farmers last year harvested a fine, 7.8 million-ton wheat crop. After a year of tasteless, sandy-colored bread adulterated with birdseed, Argentines are again eating white bread.

Hunger will not overthrow Peron. Will anything?

Discipline & Bombs. The fact is that Peron still has strong popular support. In a free election, he might poll roughly half the votes. The foundation of this support is the feeling of importance he has given the working class. Peron is still able to convince his descamisados that he is running the country for them alone. Peron tightly controls the 4,000,000-member General Confederation of Labor (C.G.T.). Should he ever lose his grip on the C.G.T., he would be done for. But so far, there are no signs that he will.

As for the army, a successful military coup, while always a possibility, looks highly unlikely at the moment. In recent weeks some of Peron's bitterest enemies--students and sons of wealthy ranchers--have tried to blast loose Peron's grip by setting off 15 homemade bombs in Buenos Aires. They gave Peron a real scare; police seized 25 machine guns, 600 rifles and pistols, more than a ton of explosives. But Peron, who blamed the bombings on foreigners and evil capitalists, once more seems firmly in the saddle.

Keeping power for a decade is quite a feat for a Latin American ruler. Paradoxically, Peron has been helped by some of his people's best qualities. Argentines are more industrious, more literate and more progress-conscious than most other Latin Americans. They are also far more disciplined. These characteristics make them susceptible to Peron's kind of highly organized and relatively subtle regime, which would be nearly impossible elsewhere in Latin America.

There is no well-organized opposition to Peron. But there is a desire for freedom which Peron cannot afford to ignore, and which so far has kept him from becoming a more openly ruthless dictator. Recently a 17-year-old student, ordered to produce an essay on the contributions of Peronismo to anatomy, summed up the feelings of thousands of his countrymen when he wrote: "The head is placed over the shoulders, to which it is attached by the neck. God put it there so that we would hold it high--which is certainly difficult to do nowadays."

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