CHILE: Preventive Power

Though Chile’s Communist Party had been outlawed since September, President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla was still worried about the mischief Communists might do in his country. Last week, to “prevent possible Communist crimes,” he asked Congress to extend for another six months his emergency power to imprison individuals without trial. By a well-timed coincidence, Gonzalez’ police has just arrested 21 Communist labor leaders in Concepcion, and seized documents purportedly proving that the 21 were cooking up ways to sabotage a steel mill, copper, coal and nitrate mines.