Exile at Work

"Who can lead a revolution from 5,000 kilometers away?" complained Juan Domingo Peron in a recent interview. Last week in Venezuela, the former Argentine dictator was wholeheartedly making trouble for his successors in spite of his distance. Reflecting his wishes, Peronistas in Buenos Aires renewed their sabotage campaign, setting off ten bombs and starting three fires in a fortnight.

The ex-strongman's Venezuelan command post is a comfortable apartment on the eighth floor of an apartment building in a Caracas residential neighborhood. Protected from unwanted visitors by Venezuelan Seguridad National guards in the lobby downstairs and on the street outside, Peron works on comeback plans twelve hours a day, openly confers with visiting plotters. In his off moments, he strolls through a nearby park or motors through the countryside with his roommates, a blonde actress named Isabelita Martinez, a black poodle named Canela, and a white poodle named Picha. A frequent guest is Laureano Vallenilla Lanz, Venezuelan Minister of the Interior.

Peron's orders are producing results. Pro-Peron propaganda in Argentina has been stepped up, much of it from a mobile radio station calling itself "Lux 45" that operates from inside Paraguay. Unable to find or silence the troublesome station, anti-Peron Argentines have begun broadcasting with a stronger transmitter on the same wave band, in an attempt to turn Peron's recorded mouthings into a joke. "We are broadcasting from the heart of the fatherland," spouts Lux 45. "You mean from the liver," answers the anti-Peron transmitter, japing at the Peronistas' bilious tone. "Peron, our leader," chants Lux 45. "Juan Domingo Gunboat." corrects the loyal radio, recalling the dictator's undignified exit aboard a Paraguayan warship.

Last week a new Argentine ambassador, Carlos Toranzo Montero, was settling down in Caracas. A soldier-diplomat, Toranzo was an army leader of the 1955 anti-Peron revolt, spent two years and seven months in a Peron jail for refusing to wear a black mourning band after Evita Peron's death. Shortly after the dictator's downfall, he was appointed as Argentine ambassador to Nicaragua at a time when Strongman Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza had publicly proclaimed that Peron would be welcome in Managua. Toranzo arranged a private talk between Tacho and Argentine President Pedro Aramburu; three days later Peron left Tacho's palace. Toranzo's big job in Caracas is to try to get Peron tossed out of Venezuela -- and out of the hemisphere.

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