ARGENTINA: A Man’s Reputation

President Juan Perón launched a new and bitter campaign last week against Argentina’s leading newspapers, La Prensa and La Nación. He announced that he would prosecute them under his new law of “disrespect” (TIME, Oct. 10) for reporting a speech in which he was accused of enriching himself while in office.

In that speech, delivered in Jujuy last month, Radical Deputy Atilio Cattáneo had waxed sarcastic about the wealth which leading Peronistas now display—including President Perón’s quinta at San Vicente, reputedly worth $300,000. A fortnight later Perón denounced the deputy’s charges, prompting Prensa and Nación, which had not published the original speech, to print short resumes of it along with the President’s reply. Roused by this action, Perón last week called his cabinet, the entire foreign correspondents’ corps and some 50 local newsmen to the Casa Rosada’s White Salon to witness one of the gaudiest theatrical scenes he had ever staged.

“A man holding office must look to his reputation,” he began. “Now that I have been accused of robbing the public purse, I intend to show by documents that these charges are false. And since Prensa and Nación have echoed these uncalled-for calumnies, I now intend to see that these accusers are brought to justice.”

At this point, Perón, who had entered the room wearing his usual broad smile, had tears streaming down his cheeks.

On a table lay a big white envelope. The envelope, said Perón, contained a statement listing his assets before he took office; it had been sealed for three years. He persuaded New York Timesman Milton Bracker and the U.P.’s William Horsey to open it. Then he called Prensa and Nación reporters forward to sign statements attesting to the contents. The statement, dated July 6, 1946 (a month after Perón took office), said simply that his assets then consisted of the San Vicente quinta, a Packard and a share in his father’s modest estate.

What did all this prove? Perón made no effort to disprove Deputy Cattaneo’s general contention that Peronistas were getting rich in office, and he did not list his own present wealth—or his wife’s. But in attacking Cattáneo and the newspapers, Perón left little doubt that his final aim was to smash the last two citadels of a free press in Argentina and rid himself of every last vestige of opposition.