The Press: LaPrensa's Return (Cont'd)

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When Peronistas seized La Prensa in Buenos Aires, they tore down the bronze statue atop the newspaper's building and hacked it into pieces. Symbolically, the statue was a woman representing truth, with a torch in one hand and La Prensa in the other. Last week the arm bearing the torch was unveiled in the building at a triumphant ceremony restoring the plant to Editor-Publisher Alberto Gainza Paz. "We return to our house," he told almost 2,000 loyal ex-staffers and friends.

But like the newspaper in the statue's left hand, La Prensa itself was still missing. Soon after Gainza Paz ended almost five years of exile (TIME, Dec. 12), the paper stopped publishing until the Argentine government could complete the technicalities of restoring it to Gainza Paz. After last week's ceremony, the publisher began going to his old office daily to reassemble his staff and tackle production problems. He planned to devote Page One to news instead of the traditional London Times-like classified ads, considered making body type larger and writing more concise. But before he could start publishing again, Gainza Paz awaited a three-month supply of newsprint. In view of an acute shortage and the snarl of red tape left by Peron, nobody knew how much longer that would take.