Unmerry May Day

When Juan Peron returned to power last October, he vowed to go before Argentines every May Day to deliver a progress report. As the date approached last week, he had some notable achievements to boast about: inflation had been cut from 80% to 30%, wages raised 13%, and the nation's pride had been given a boost when Washington was forced last month to back down from an order that prevented subsidiaries of U.S. auto companies in Argentina from selling cars to Cuba. But pride and prosperity were only part of el Lider 's promise; Argentines also wanted to hear that Peron had made progress in controlling the political violence raging throughout the country. Instead, they got a rancorous demonstration of the divisions that could push their nation toward civil war.

Even before he began to speak to the 100,000 Peronistas who had massed in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo, battle-battered partisans were being passed over the heads of the crowd to waiting ambulances. Fearing such violence, Peron had warned ralliers not to show up with their factional signs. Yet leftists unfurled defiant banners to make their presence felt. They succeeded only too well. Enraged rightists tore down the banners and attacked.

When Peron appeared on a balcony overlooking the square, he disdainfully observed the mayhem beneath him, abandoned his prepared text, and called the demonstrators "jerks." "Today we see that a bunch of adolescents would claim more merit than those who have fought for 20 years," he declared. In pro test, the leftists began leaving the plaza --closely pursued by right-wing Peronistas, who chased them down side streets, beating them with bamboo staves. The day's toll: 90 wounded.

Though he has not yet irrevocably repudiated the leftists, Peron is inexorably edging to the right. As increasing violence brings the country ever closer to civil war, events are forcing him to choose. Just last week, Jorge V. Quiroga, a former judge assigned to political cases, was gunned down in central Buenos Aires by leftist guerrillas. Since Peron formally took office, 22 businessmen, foreign and Argentine, have been kidnaped, mainly by leftists; 18 people have been killed in political violence and more than twice as many have been wounded; several houses and a newspaper have been hit by fire bombs; and a bank has been blown up. The catalogue of horrors even includes what might be called a municipal coup in the traditionally leftist industrial city of Cordoba (pop. 1 million). There police officials forcibly overthrew the legally elected left-wing governor of the province.

Personnel Out. As he has with much of the violence, Peron looked the other way, since both rightists and leftists proclaim allegiance to him. But one key element in his effort to keep the country together is continued economic improvement, or at least stability, which depends in no small measure on foreign investment. Many of the kidnap victims have been foreign businessmen, such as U.S. Exxon Executive Victor Samuelson, 36, who was released last week after 144 days of captivity and after his firm paid $14.2 million hi ransom. Last November a U.S. Ford executive was killed in an apparent kidnap attempt. With such rampant violence seemingly beyond Peron's control, U.S. companies are pulling their personnel out of Argentina, and may well limit their investments. For Peron, that is a serious threat, one that could finally launch an all-out campaign against the leftists.

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