ARGENTINA: Reform Decrees

With a cheerful clanking of governmental wrenches, Revolutionary President Pedro Aramburu last week unbolted some more of the undemocratic machinery put together over a decade by ex-Dictator Juan Perón. One dramatic decree returned the famed newspaper La Prensa to its original owners. Another dissolved the strongman's Peronista Party.

Perón's party was an invaluable prop to his dictatorship. Founded in 1949 and force-fed on government funds and jobs, the party grew to 3,000,000 members. Working against divided opposition and favored by winner-take-all election laws, the Peronistas were eventually able to name all but twelve of the 200 legislators in Congress. By party statutes, Chief of the Movement Perón passed on all candidates and party leaders. Charged the decree that dissolved it: the party "served unconditionally all the deviations, violations and arbitrary acts of the former ruler."

Aramburu also:

¶ Decontrolled many prices and canceled all labor contracts, apparently to promote a freer economy.

¶ Gave a hint of the new government's policy toward the Roman Catholic Church. One noon a presidential car rolled up before the residence of Bishop Miguel de Andrea, took him mysteriously off to the big house he founded for working girls. Inside, waiting at a table for a surprise luncheon with the bishop were President Aramburu and Vice President Isaac Rojas. The girls cheered. Liberal Bishop de Andrea is a popular opponent of the old-fogy Church clique that got along fine with Perón until he tried to curb their prerogatives; from the government's graceful and pointed gesture toward the bishop, Argentines drew obvious conclusions.