The Press: The Price of Courage

• Share

When Perón closed down Buenos Aires' La Prensa a year ago, Editor Alberto Gainza Paz fled the country. But 75 other La Prensa newsmen who refused to work for the Peronista successor to the paper were not so fortunate; they had to stay in Argentina. By last week, on the anniversary of the paper's death, Perón's systematic campaign to blacklist and starve out the staffers had become a ruthless object lesson to other newsmen.

Three of La Prensa's newsmen quickly found jobs in the classified ad department of another paper. They were fired as soon as their names turned up on the government blacklist. Others who tried to work in department stores, tourist and export agencies met the same fate. One top editor is now a door-to-door washing machine salesman. Others give private language lessons, work in hardware stores or small shops under assumed names. Not one has a newspaper job.

There are also signs that Perón is forcing La Naión, once an independent, anti-Perón daily, to conform to his line. When La Prensa was closed, La Naión's Editorial Writer Alfonso de Laferrère wrote in La Naión: "A great voice has been silenced, but its echo will continue to vibrate . . ." The Peronistas soon went to work—as they had on La Prensa—totting up a trumped-up "customs bill" of 17 million pesos that the paper was supposed to owe the government. If La Naión steps out of line, it can be expropriated by the government, which could assess the paper's value at the amount of the bill due, thus take it over without paying a cent. But La Naión has been careful not to step too far out of line. Recently, when the paper agreed to a Peronista "suggestion" that it run an editorial favorable to the Peronistas, Laferrère, the most respected editorial writer in Argentina, resigned. Said he: "No newspaper can surrender only a part of its liberty."