Argentina: Ghost from the Past

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"The people in these provinces had every opportunity to repudiate us,'' Frondizi said, "but they did not." Despite the hopeful signs, Per&243;nista rallies grew to impressive size. "Per&243;n or death!" slogans appeared on streetcar islands and walls. Framini, although an anti-Communist and a practicing Roman Catholic, began campaigning against Frondizi for selling out to "Yankee imperialism." Che Guevara's Red mother Celia showed up at Per&243;nista rallies, asking that"the voice of Cuba, sister of Per&243;nism, be heard." The Per&243;nistas had no need to ask what little support Argentina's tiny (estimated membership: 100,000) Communist Party could offer. In the end, it was given just the same.

A week before the election, the worried government canceled the Per&243;nistas' right to campaign on radio and TV.

Forty-eight hours before polling time, Frondizi held a final press conference to insist that all was going well for his Intransigents and that the results of the balloting would stand, come what may.

Frondizi's massive miscalculation not only jeopardized his own future, it jeopardized democracy in Argentina. It was bad enough for him to deny office to men legally elected; it was worse still for a President to revoke an election on the orders of the military. Throughout the hemisphere, people were shocked at the turn of events in a nation as presumably stable as Argentina. In Washington, the first reaction was that the Alliance for Progress had been dealt a severe blow. Had it not backed the wrong man? The Kennedy Administration's second reaction was not so alarmist: the news from Buenos Aires only underlined the fact that trouble can break out anywhere in Latin America, thereby justifying continued U.S. concern; furthermore, the fact that suppressed elections, general strikes and military interference had not led to more turmoil suggested that there was much in Argentina—beyond one possibly expendable politician and one ghost from the past—to build on.

As the week of crisis went on, the Argentine public—though both ashamed and apprehensive—went its way. Thousands jammed the soccer stadiums and the race tracks. All the while the military argued to exhaustion, divided over two propositions, one side arguing: "Let's get Frondizi out first, then talk," the other, "Frondizi had better stay, but he will have to take orders." Above the battle ex-President Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, a respected old soldier, requested eight to ten days to mediate the differences be tween Frondizi and the military. Frondizi himself labored to assemble an uncontroversial Cabinet of technicians agreeable to the military. It was by no means certain that this would be enough to save his skin.

Britain's touring Prince Philip arrived in town and was given a state dinner by Frondizi as if nothing untoward were happening. But the irrepressible Duke of Edinburgh saw an opportunity to read Argentina's War Secretary, General Rosendo Fraga, a little lecture.

Philip (turning to the general at a social function): Have you been minister for a long time? Fraga (standing at attention): For al most one year.

Philip: Tell me something. Do you en joy it?

Fraga (darkening visibly): Yes, Your Highness.