The Pingpong Game Is Over

Guatemala City's workers and shopkeepers applauded politely, and the hundreds of straw-hat peasants trucked into the capital stood passively. The country's new military strongman was addressing them. On a balcony of the avocado green national palace, Army Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, 54, explained what was in store for the country following his overthrow of President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes. He began by proclaiming Decree Law No. 1: subject--labor reform. Peralta promised equal pay for both Indians and whites, an eight-hour day and a 48-hour week, paid vacations, maternity leave, the right of farm labor to organize unions, "encouragement" of low-cost housing. And finally, said Peralta. "We intend to eradicate Communism, totally, from Guatemala."

High Time. That seemed to be the plank that interested Peralta the most. An austere, humorless man who goes to mass regularly, he has a record unblemished by any flirtation with the left, and his open affection for the U.S. was cemented during a 1940 tour of defense pests as the guest of then Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. "That was a magnificent trip." Peralta remembers. Selecting his Cabinet last week, he stuck strictly to anti-Communists but chose a majority of civilians. Peralta's Treasury Minister announced plans to cut down on the budget deficit, fire featherbedding federal workers and reform the tax system.

Guatemalans have heard similar pledges from military rulers before. But if they were still reserved about the new, nearly everyone agreed about the old: it was high time for Ydigoras to go. "We Guatemalans were living like spectators at a pingpong game," said the moderate daily El Impartial, "looking from side to side as the Ydigoras government switched position from day to day, capricious and unstable.''

Devious Schemes. For five years, the country was never quite sure what the President would say or do next. His most consistent policy was his antiCommunism. Guatemala was the training base for the Bay of Pigs invaders, and Ydigoras was loudest among Latin America's anti-Castroites. Yet recently, Ydigoras seemed to be going about it in a devious and dangerous way that enraged his most loyal supporters.

Last year, exiled Juan Jose Arevalo, 58, the Yankee hater (The Shark and the Sardines) who made friends with the Communists during his 1945-51 term as President, announced that he was returning to run for President again. Ydigoras let it be known that he would hale Arevalo into court if he set foot in Guatemala. Then he had a better idea: Why not let Arevalo return and beat him at an election? Ydigoras could do this by his control of the election machinery. Ydigoras' own candidate was Roberto Alejos, a planter who lent some of his lands as training sites for the Bay of Pigs invaders. Guatemala's military men recommended against taking chances. Ydigoras went ahead anyway, and Arevalo sneaked into Guatemala. In fact, there were reports that Alejos arranged Arevalo's flight from Mexico in a private plane, and that Arevalo landed at a remote airstrip on one of Alejos' plantations.

Whether the reports were true or not, the military indignantly took over--a plan known to President Kennedy weeks before. The brass arrested Ydigoras and Alejos, sent them into exile. Though Washington is in no hurry to recognize the Peralta regime, it will probably do so eventually. In return for promises of democratic intent, the U.S. similarly recognized the de facto military governments that overturned constitutional rule in Peru and Argentina last year. Last week President Kennedy told his press conferences that Guatemalan recognition would depend on "what assurances we get as to when a democratic government will be formed or when elections will be held."

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