Penetration & Power

Misty-eyed defenders of Guatemala's party-lining government regularly point out that, after all, there are really only four Communists among the country's 64 Congressmen. But does that modest statistic truly reflect the extent of Communist penetration and power? Not by the length of Marx's beard--as two deputies to Congress demonstrated last week.

One of them was Francisco Fernandez, boss of the majority party in Congress, the Revolutionary Action Party (PAR), which elected President Jacobo Arbenz. PAR is moderately leftish, and "Paco" Fernandez is supposed to be no worse than a dilettantish fellow traveler.

One afternoon Paco rose in Congress and said a few kind words for some local Communists. As he warmed to his work, he exclaimed that the Communist Party is Guatemala's "most decent, most honest, most disciplined and most patriotic." Finally, carried away, Paco blurted out that his own party, PAR. is "only a party of transition . . . destined to disappear into the great world Communist Party."

A bloc of other PAR deputies, embarrassed at what they called Pace's "indiscretion," hastily removed him from the party's secretary-generalship. In his place they named Julio Estrada de la Hoz, a member of Guatemala's U.N. delegation. But Estrada de la Hoz, in the judgment of most Guatemalan political observers, is well to the left of Paco Fernandez.

While Paco thus provided a glimpse of Red penetration, Cesar Montenegro Paniagua, one of the four Communist deputies, showed Red power. When the workers of the U.S.-owned International Railways of Central America met to consider a strike vote, their own union president took a back seat and Paniagua took charge. Under his deft prodding, the union enthusiastically voted to strike. At 9 o'clock one night last week, engineers tooted the whistles of the 14 locomotives in the Guatemala City yards, and the strike was on.

Within a day, the capital was out of meat and low on gasoline. As though by plan, President Jacobo Arbenz declared an emergency, summoned his Cabinet and seized the road. As trains began to move again, Alfonso Bauer Paiz, who proudly proclaims his hatred of "foreign monopolies," was named government interventor.

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