Proud, swashbuckling Brigadier General José Alvarez—since 1924 Chief of Staff to President Plutarco Elias Calles—is suspected of being a monstrous smuggler, a multifaced Judas, a thoroughgoing rapscallion.
Not until last week, however, would even potent Mexicans have dared to cry "Rapscallion!" at steelyeyed, quick-triggered General José. Then, suddenly, President Plutarco Elias Calles, bull-necked and bushy-browed, took pen into heavy fist and dashed an angry signature onto a proclamation: "To my greatest surprise, and assuredly that of the entire country, it has been discovered that one of the highest officials of the...