Revolt of Noon

Through the brooding noonday fog, a navy plane swooped down toward Buenos Aires' spreading Plaza de Mayo. Watchers in the busy plaza felt no alarm; air force planes were scheduled to drop flowers at midday on the plaza's Roman Catholic cathedral in honor of Argentine Liberator Jose de San Martin, whose tomb is in the church. But instead of dropping flowers, the plane loosed two dark objects that hurtled downward toward President Juan Peron's headquarters, the block-long Casa Rosada (Pink House) standing at the other end of the plaza.

An eardrum-rupturing explosion, then another, sent blinding clouds of smoke and dust billowing into the air. Jagged pieces of steel ripped into scores of bodies. Cries of pain and terror rang out. A young woman stared in silent dismay at her Weeding leg stump. As survivors scattered in panic, a few more navy planes roared in low over the plaza. Two more bombs burst. From upper windows of the nearby Navy Ministry, machine guns sprayed the Pink House.

A White Flag. The most serious attempt in nine years to dislodge Strongman Peron had begun--on the very day that he was excommunicated by the Pope for his bitter fight with the Roman Catholic Church. Ten minutes earlier, Peron, warned by intelligence agents that a military revolt was about to break out, had hustled out of the Pink House. Within minutes after the first bomb exploded, truckloads of soldiers raced to defend the Pink House from an advancing skirmish line of rebel marines. A government radio station shrilly called upon members of the Peron-controlled General Labor Confederation (C.G.T.) to seize automobiles, trucks and buses--killing the drivers if necessary--and hasten to the Plaza de Mayo.

Peron needed no help from the C.G.T.; he had a lopsided preponderance of military power: the army, most of the air force, part of the navy. Tanks and infantry beat back the attacking marines.

Troops with tanks and light artillery be sieged the Navy Ministry, the rebel head quarters. The revolutionaries inside ran up a white surrender flag within two hours, abruptly lowered it when a new wave of rebel planes swept in and strafed the be siegers, then raised the flag again. Among the rebels captured was the revolt's leader, Rear Admiral Anibal O. Olivieri, 48, Juan Peron's Navy Minister since 1951.

Planes Across the River. By 3 p.m. the battle of Buenos Aires seemed over. Gawkers gathered in the battered plaza. Between announcements that Peron was victorious and the nation tranquil, a radio station inanely played a record of an old George Gershwin song. Somebody Loves Me, I Wonder Who? Suddenly, rebel airmen struck again. Planes swept across the plaza, dropping bombs and raking soldiers and civilians with machine-gun fire. Hundreds more were killed or wounded.

After that, the revolt quickly faded out. During the afternoon, tank-led army units captured the rebels' air base east of the capital. With no place to land and refuel, the pilots gave up, headed across the River Plate toward Uruguay, longtime haven for enemies of Juan Peron. Before nightfall, 38 planes carrying 124 revolutionaries landed on Uruguayan soil. The flyers blamed their defeat on the fog, which hindered rebel planes and warships and prevented a planned landing on the Buenos Aires waterfront; they also complained bitterly of a last-minute backdown by army commanders who had promised to join the revolt. Through the night, a clandestine radio transmitter kept proclaiming that army garrisons in the interior had revolted. But the claim was not borne out. For the moment, Peron had won.

The estimated toll stood at 360 dead, nearly 1,000 wounded. The Plaza de Mayo district was blood-spattered and bomb-scarred, littered with the wreckage of torn buildings, shattered windows and smashed-up vehicles. After a seven-minute victory speech by Peron, eulogizing the loyal army, mobs of civilians raged through the capital. That night the sky glowed red as flames leaped up from at least seven Roman Catholic churches and the residence of Argentina's Cardinal Primate.

The Father of Chaos. It was Argentina's bloodiest and most chaotic day since the country came under the control of Juan Peron, a man who once said to a group of fellow army officers: "I am the son and the father of chaos." In nine years as President, he had feuded with the press, political parties, courts, farmers and businessmen before taking on the church.

He had weakened his opposition by dividing it, e.g., playing off industry against agriculture, and when such mild tactics failed, he used policemen, bullyboys and wrought-up mobs to frighten and smash his opponents. His jails have been populated at various times by editors, politicians, students and priests. His only opposition in the federal Congress comes from a remnant of twelve Radical Party Deputies, who are permitted to go on voting against the Peronista majority because they serve the stage-prop purpose of suggesting that Argentina is a democracy.

Last year Peron sniffed the beginnings of a new opposition, led by Roman Catholic priests and members of Catholic lay organizations. The Catholic hierarchy in Argentina had supported Peron during his rise to power and his early years as President. What crystallized Catholic opposition to Peron was largely his campaign to Peronize the minds of Argentine school children. (Says a Peronized first-grade reader: "Peron is the leader. Everyone loves Peron. Everyone sings, 'Viva Peron! Viva the leader! Viva!'") Catholics set out to organize a Christian Democratic political party. Last October oratorical rumbles against "sectarian" opposition signaled the outbreak of a war of harassment against the church.

Since then, Peron's police have arrested scores of priests and hundreds of Catholic laymen for showing "disrespect," distributing Catholic reading matter or taking part in Catholic demonstrations. His Congress has passed measures that 1) legalize divorce, 2) forbid outdoor religious gatherings, 3) banish religious instruction from public schools, 4) wipe out the tax exemptions of religious institutions, 5) call for election of a national assembly to cut away the constitution's provisions linking the government and the Catholic Church.

On the weekend before the revolt, Peron's feud with the church reached a crescendo. Defying a government ban, 100,000 Catholics gathered in front of the cathedral on the Plaza de Mayo, then paraded through the downtown streets. The government labeled the marchers "vandals," accused them of burning an Argentine flag. At midweek, Peron ordered two high-ranking Argentine prelates -- Bishop Manuel Tato and Monsignor Ramon Pablo Novoa --expelled from the country on the ground that they had incited the flag-burners. The following day came the Vatican excommunication.

Forces of Repression. After the revolt, General Franklin Lucero, Peron's Army Minister and reputedly one of his closest military friends, formally took over --"at the express orders of the President" --the task of safeguarding "internal order and public tranquillity." An army communique stated that, as "Commander in Chief of the Forces of Repression," Lucero would be in charge of all security forces, even the federal police. With Lucero holding the big stick, Peron tried to quiet the nation's alarm by speaking softly--and with unabashed cynicism. He blamed "Communist elements" for the church burnings, said that he "deplores and vigorously condemns the excesses," added: "We do not want anything but peace." Later, Peron--or Lucero--made a start toward conciliating the Catholics by 1 ) ordering the release of all jailed priests, 2) making a special exception to the ban on public gatherings so that Catholics could hold church services mourning the persons killed during the revolt. This week a flotilla of rebel naval vessels was reported still holding out off Buenos Aires, apparently trying to negotiate with Peron and the army. Elsewhere, Lucero seemed to have everything under control--perhaps even Peron.

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