BOLIVIA-PARAGUAY: Runaway Grandfather

Runaway Grandfather

Scrappiest of nations, Bolivia and Paraguay promptly resumed their savage jungle war for possession of the swampy Gran Chaco one midnight last week, on the expiration of their recent armistice (TIME, Jan. 1).

Persuaded to go home just before the shooting recommenced was Paraguay's "Runaway Grandfather," dauntless 65-year-old Jose Escobar who sneaked away from his family two months ago, joined his son at the front and fought for 21 consecutive days in Paraguay's Big Push which wiped out 15,000 Bolivians (TIME, Dec. 25).

The bitter struggle has raged between Bolivia and Paraguay off & on for 50 years. Nothing will swerve the average South American from his belief, founded on pure but insistent hearsay, that "The whole thing is a struggle between the United States which has always backed Bolivia and Great Britain which has always helped Paraguay."