SOUTH AMERICA: Plucked Condor

Five months ago Brazil’s sharp-eyed little President Getulio Dornelles Vargas started clipping the wings of the German Condor airline. First snip came in June when he refused a petition of the Rio-São Paulo branch to keep two of its Nazi pilots on the payroll. Last month he cut a little closer, canceled a contract for service be tween Belem (formerly Pará), at the mouth of the Amazon, and the French Guiana frontier. Three weeks ago he brought out his shears again, ousted all foreign pilots, whether naturalized or not, from Brazilian airlines.

But last week well-plucked Condor turned amphibian. Taking to the water, it signed a contract with Snapp Navigation Co. of Brazil for service up the Amazon. The new river line will connect Condor’s coastal route to its line running up along the Bolivian-Brazilian frontier, will give its systems in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru access to an Atlantic outlet. If President Vargas’ three-week-old promise of domestic colonization and agricultural development in the Amazon goes through, Condor will have a wedge into the heart of Brazil’s richest territory.

Day later President Vargas gave his scissors another threatening click. The Government-owned Port of Para Corp. took over the local Condor agency, bringing all commercial flying in the Amazon region under administration control.