ARGENTINA: Another Trick

The President of Argentina was to have been overthrown at 7 a.m. on June 19. Distrustful anti-Peronista military men, who cannot forget that Arturo Frondizi took Peronista votes to get elected last year, were determined to oust him. The fact that he now espouses austere anti-Peronista economics made them the more doubtful; to the military that looked devious. The plotters underestimated Frondizi. Last week he was still in office with a strong new Cabinet, and most of the plotters were in hiding.

D-day for the plot was originally set for the last week in July. But last month, former Dictator Juan Peron, exiled in the Dominican Republic, published what he said was a pre-election pact between himself and Frondizi. Thus provoked, the plotters moved up the date. At the signal—to be given by Rear Admiral Arturo Rial—the traditionally anti-Peronist Córdoba garrison would rise, and warships from the Rio Santiago and Puerto Belgrano bases would steam along the River Plate and blockade Buenos Aires. It was roughly the same plan that toppled Peron in 1955-Fatal Flaw. But the plan had a paradoxical flaw: too many other officers outside the plot were also angry with Frondizi. After the Peron “revelation,” two nonplotting generals presented ultimatums of their own for changes in the Frondizi government. Other garrisons loudly joined the protest, and the military opposition to Frondizi broadened to the point where the plotters could not control and maneuver it. Frondizi began making concessions, notably jettisoning an unpopular under secretary of war. Admiral Rial threw up his hands and surrendered; three fellow conspirators took refuge in the Uruguayan embassy.

President Frondizi thus won time to deal with the broad spectrum of opposition in the armed forces. He fired most of his Cabinet. Notable exceptions: Interior Minister Alfredo Vitolo and the three service secretaries, who were deemed needed to pressure the forces into discipline. Next day Vitolo summoned all the political parties except the Communists and Peronistas, outlined the threat of coup, got all but one of them to agree to support President Frondizi and civilian government against the military. Said the Socialists, who the night before had been demanding Frondizi’s resignation: “We are for legality.”

An Austerity Czar. Frondizi went on to consult with big businessmen, stockbrokers, landowners, bankers—the group Argentines call the fuerzas vivas (productive forces)—and announced a new Cabinet. Key man, as Minister of Economics, was Alvaro Alsogaray, 46, a tough, bouncy free enterpriser in the Ludwig Erhard mold. Said he to Frondizi: “I will carry out your austerity plan, but with my own methods and my own team.”

When the stormy week ended, Frondizi had the backing of big business, the neutrality of a large section of the military, a truce with most of his political opponents. For the first time in weeks, he pulled a beret on his head and took a half-hour stroll on downtown streets. “It may be merely another trick,” moaned a coup-bent general—from his hiding place.