ARGENTINA: Dynamite & Red Paint

“CONGRATULATIONS,” the cable read, “CAN HARDLY WAIT TO MEET WHAT WE ARE SURE MUST BE THREE AND HALF KILOS DYNAMITE.” Frank Kirton, 43, beamed as he read it; his wife had just given birth to a son, weight 3½ kilograms. Somehow, Argentina’s ever-alert federal police got hold of a copy of the cable; their gimlet eyes lingered long over the word “dynamite.” Kirton, after all, was a foreigner— a Brazilian-born Briton. And he owned a ranch in Gualeguaychú in Entre Rios Province, just across the river from Uruguay—mighty handy for smuggling dynamite.

Even more alarming was a subsequent telegram from another friend of the Kir-tons in northern Argentina: “WHEN NEXT WE COME BUENOS AIRES LETS PLAN PAINT TOWN RED.” Translated for the police into literal Spanish, this one conjured up a bloody business indeed—a Communist rising, perhaps, or a latter-day storming of the Bastille.

The “plot,” the cops decided, was obviously directed at President Juan Domingo Perón, who was even then embarking with his wife on an excursion up the Paraná River for some ceremonies in connection with the Year of San Martin. Police cutters were hastily ordered out, with machine guns at the ready, to escort the presidential yacht. Police jeeps raced along the banks of the river spotting “intriguers.” At the ceremony itself, the President could hardly be seen for the swarm of blue-uniformed police who surrounded him.

Suspicion deepened into certainty when the police discovered that there were two U.S. citizens—brothers George and Arthur Oppen—living in Gualeguaychú. At 6 o’clock one morning, five husky cops strode into Kirton’s bedroom, hauled him off to jail. Not only the Oppens but three members of Argentina’s moribund Conservative Party who had also been friendly with Kirton or the Oppens were arrested. For good measure, a few members of the troublesome Radical Party and a Communist or two were also nabbed. In all, 24 men were arrested; all were held incommunicado.

After days of futile inquiries and protests, the British Embassy announced last week that it had obtained Kirton’s release. The police, until then mum about the whole affair, finally admitted that the arrests had been made—in an investigation of “a plot to sow confusion and dissension.” Next day the federal judge charged with the investigation denounced the plot as a phony, ordered the rest of the suspects freed. Federal Police Chief Arturo Bertollo hurriedly departed for a few weeks’ rest in Argentina’s beautiful Andean lakes region.