ARGENTINA: Six Tries & Out

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As Foreign Minister, Juan Atilio Bramuglia was one of the ablest men in President Juan Perón's cabinet. Though a moderate, he was also one of Perón's oldest and staunchest supporters. But he had one disadvantage: he had somehow, somewhere, offended the President's wife, Evita. Last week, it indirectly cost him his job.

Bramuglia, the son of poor Italian immigrants, is a quiet, complex man of unquestioned integrity. As Foreign Minister, he led his country away from its stubborn opposition to the U.S. in hemispheric councils. At the U.N. he made a flashy try at reconciling the Western powers and Russia on the Berlin blockade. But at home, on la Señora's orders, he was rewarded with a campaign of insulting silence in the Peronista press and on the radio (TIME, May 16).

Studied Calm. Gradually, the silent treatment began to undermine Bramuglia's studied calm, perhaps even caused him to see enemies where none existed. He confided to friends that he suspected his old friend, Ambassador to the U.S. Jerónimo Remorino, of conspiring against him. At least five times he resigned, as many times the President talked him into staying.

Last fortnight, puzzled by his Foreign Minister's and his Ambassador's widely divergent estimates of U.S. sentiment toward Argentina, Perón decided to find out who was right. Without bothering to consult the sensitive Bramuglia, he called Remorino home. In an early-morning session in the President's Casa Rosada office, the two men were asked to explain the difference in their views. Words passed, tempers rose. Bramuglia accused Remorino of plotting to get his job. Finally, his composure lost, the Foreign Minister used the classic Spanish obscenity about a man's mother. Then, pulling his sixth resignation from his pocket, he slapped it on the President's desk. "This is the end of this!" he said, and slammed out.

Question of Honor. Perón accepted the resignation, but the question of Remorino's honor had still to be settled. Remorino challenged Bramuglia to a duel. When their seconds met in Buenos Aires' Hotel Continental, Bramuglia had an explanation : the ex-Foreign Minister had no recollection of having called Remorino a bad name. Since this amounted to a retraction, the duel was called off.

Meanwhile, to fill the cabinet vacancy, Perón dredged up a little-known criminal lawyer named Hipólito Jesús Paz, 32. A moderate nationalist, the new Foreign Minister is a junior partner in a Buenos Aires law firm whose clients include the notorious Fritz Mandl, onetime Austrian munitions-maker. As for Private Citizen Bramuglia, a poor man, he planned to practice law after a trip to the U.S.