CHILE: Presidents of the Week

There is a nightmare that every Latin-American President has over & over again. In it the dapper officers who have been saluting so punctiliously come to the President’s bedroom in the middle of the night with a resignation for him to sign. Chilean officers last week called on dapper little President Carlos Guillermo Davila. former Ambassador to the U. S., and it was no dream. While airplanes droned over the Presidential palace for nearly 24 hours, General Bartolome Blanche, the Army’s Commander in Chief, and Col. Arturo Merino Benitez, Chief of the Air Force, argued and threatened. Finally President Davila resigned. General Blanche became Chile’s Provisional President.

Both Carlos Davila and General Blanche are used to such upsets. In July 1930. black-mustached Carlos Ibanez was driven out as dictator of Chile. At that time General Blanche was a faithful, little-known Ibanez adherent and Don Carlos Davila was Ambassador at Washington. Ambassador Davila returned to Santiago and went into hiding. General Blanche allied himself with an abortive attempt to restore General Ibanez to power, was cashiered from the army.

In June 1932 Citizen Davila succeeded in ousting President Montero with the aid of a part-Irish friend, Col. Marmaduke Grove (pronounced Gro-vay) of the air force. On becoming President. Don Carlos Davila made strenuous attempts to win the favor of the common people of Chile. He announced a program of “progressive” Socialism, one of the chief points of which was nationalization of the Guggenheim-controlled “Cosach” nitrate trust which, as Ambassador, he had helped set up.

This did not appeal to Col. Marmaduke Grove. He ousted President Davila. But a week later back popped Carlos Davila as President to exile his former friend Grove to Juan Fernandez Islands, involuntary home of the original Robinson Crusoe and native haunt of the finest lobsters in South America. General Bartolome Blanche bided his time.

His time came last week, just after President Davila had announced the creation of six great corporations (modeled on the trusts of Russia) to nationalize Chilean industry and foreign trade. But Provisional President Blanche’s time was short. Col. Grove was still on Juan Fernandez Island, but another colonel of aviation was at hand, Col. Arturo Merino Benitez. He followed his predecessor’s precedent, forced Blanche out of office. But only for a few hours. The Army remained loyal to General Blanche. Troops were rushed to El Bosque airport and Col. Benitez with 90 of his aviators prudently took off. They were captured when they landed at Ovalle. That left Bartolome Blanche President of Chile for the second time last week, but he had plenty to worry about. In the confusion sly Carlos Davila had “completely disappeared!” What was he planning? Where was he hiding? What act would he next bring on in the Chilean charade?