General Failure

The junta dumps its own man

After precisely eight months and twelve days in office, President Roberto Eduardo Viola last week was removed by Argentina's ruling three-man military junta. Early in November, Viola, 57, had stepped aside voluntarily to recuperate from a heart ailment. He yielded power to an interim President amid widespread rumors that he would be permanently replaced because of his notable lack of success in managing the country's deepening recession. Indeed, repeated attempts were made by junta members to convince Viola to hand in his resignation. Then last week the junta summoned the stubborn President to army headquarters in Buenos Aires and summarily stripped him of his office.

Viola's brief reign was a general disaster. Though Argentina was already in serious economic trouble when he took office last March, Viola led his resource-rich country into the worst economic crisis in its 165-year history. Successive government currency devaluations have plunged the Argentine peso from 2,000 to the dollar to 10,000 to the dollar. Inflation is raging at 120%. As much as half of the country's industry has come to a standstill, and some 13% of the work force is unemployed. An estimated 2.2 million skilled and professional Argentines, or 8% of the population, have left the country, most of them in the last few years. Piecemeal attempts to control inflation--by declaring a moratorium on industrial debt, for example--have been delayed and poorly implemented. Commented the Buenos Aires news paper Clarin: "Few times has the political arena been so confused, contradictory, and in conflict with reality."

Viola's successor, junta member and army commander-in-chief General Leopoldo Fortunate Galtieri, does not take office armed with much confidence from his fellow Argentines, who are deeply cynical about the ability of the generals to govern. Galtieri will be the third military ruler, after Jorge Rafael Videla and Viola, since the 1976 coup that overthrew the government of Isabelita Peron and resulted in a bloody campaign to rid the country of leftist terrorists. The down-to-earth Galtieri, 55, is said to be well-liked in Washington and is expected to move swiftly to restore economic order to Argentina. But his stewardship of el proceso, as skeptics disparagingly call Argentina's agonizingly slow return to democracy, will be judged by how quickly he restores civilian rule to the country.

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