PERU: Submarine Scandal

In Groton, Conn. last week, two sleek, new submarines for the Peruvian navy slid down the ways in a dramatic double launching, and a watching crowd cheered. In Lima, a sour official communiqué suggested that the new government would have been just as happy if the submarines had never been ordered.

The subs were the second pair of four ordered between 1952 and 1955 by Vice Admiral Roque Saldias, the Navy Minister. The reputed cost was $32 million, payable over five years, a heavy drain for a nation whose record navy budget is only $13 million, but no complaint was heard as long as Dictator Manuel Odria was in power. After President Manuel Prado took office last July, navy officers and newsmen began some critical digging. They reported that before ordering the subs, Admiral Saldias had turned down a U.S. offer of two World War II-type heavy cruisers at a bargain $2,000,000 each, payable over 30 years.

Spurred by this hint of scandal, the new administration pressed on to discover, as it explained in, last week’s communique, that the costly submarines “were contracted for by direct order of … Vice-Admiral Roque Saldias without the approval of the technical bodies of the Ministry of the Navy.” La Prensa commented that “notwithstanding the gravity of these charges, the vice-admiral has so far chosen to maintain, absolute silence about them, although it is being charged that he preferred the submarines because of the juicy commissions.”