Nun's Tale

From the Mexican clergy recently came an eloquent appeal that nuns in general be not held responsible for the acts of one demented individual. The individual in question was Mother Superior Maria Concepcion Acebedo de la Llata, 36-year-old bobbed haired nun.

The Story. Mother Concepcion, sinister, mysterious master mind, has long made it a practice to gather about her youthful impressionable idealists, wheedle them into fanatics, use them as instruments, her end being the deliverance of Mexico from "religious persecution."

At a meeting on April 13 she directed one Maria Elena Manzano, 21-year-old beauty, to proceed with four men, then present, to the city of Celaya, site of an approaching festival, there to inveigle President Calles and General Obregon into dancing with her.

This Maria knew that she could do. Secreted on her person was a lancet covered with a deadly poison; whether she would have the courage or the opportunity to administer without detection a tiny scratch upon the hands of her distinguished partners, she did not know. However, her companions carried six-shooting, surer weapons in the event that she should fail.

At Celaya the crowds were large. Maria wondered how she would escape if plans went awry, trembled at the thought of consequences, hesitated. Timidity was contagious. The men agreed that postponement was a wiser course.

Returned to Mother Concepcion, the party was upbraided for its failure.

"Ai, madre," they protested, "how could you ask a girl to do such a terrible thing?" Laconically, coldly the Mother Superior replied, "I am using girls for everything."

The group next turned to nitroglycerine, experimented for a month. Surreptitiously Carlos Castro Balda, ex-government clerk and Manuel Trejo, Laborite, entered the cloakroom of the Chamber of Deputies, placed there one of their concoctions. Later it exploded, but too late.

Then neophyte Jose de Leon Toral, disgusted with his fellows, inspired ' by Mother Concepcion, took the matter in his own hands. More courageous, more resolved, he entered the restaurant La Bombilla, approached General Obregon, face to face (TIME, July 30) shot him dead.

Such, at least, was the theory advanced in a 5,000-word statement issued last week by General Antonio Rios Zertuchg, Mexican Chief of Police, official reply to insinuations implicating Mexico's President in General Obregon's murder.

Interviewed by reporters, would-be-dancing-murderess Manzano admitted the plot, gave love for Bomber Balda as a reason for her implication, denied that Mother Concepcion had attended meetings. Said Balda, in exoneration of the clergy, "I alone am responsible for my actions." Toral hinted that he had been inspired, but not incited, by the nun. Mother Concepcion, herself, explained that four years ago cruel laws had driven her from her convent, and that her house had become a centre where people liked to gather for spiritual consolation, denied that she had ever counselled violence, threw open her blue prison blouse and showed reporters a cross branded on her breast, said: "In suffering there is redemption. I've been happy all the time I've been in jail--would give drop by drop my blood, if I could end this conflict."

Still, the legend of a secret order, some said designated by the letter U, persisted. There were those who held that Mother Concepcion was not the evil genius, but merely the organizer of the band, a go-between, acting in the interests of an unknown, higher power.

Pope v. Calles. The Osservatore Romano, semi-official Vatican organ, replied with a repetition of its accusations linking the Mexican executive's name with General Obregon's murder. It scoffed at Calles' "thirst for justice," declared that his own guilt was obvious to anyone who had followed, step by step, events in Mexico. "The road which led him, together with Obregon, over the corpses of Carranza, Gomez and Serrano, led Calles fatally to pass also over Obregon's dead body ... did his best to hide the key that makes the truth obvious."

"Did not choose." In Mexico opinions were at odds as to the intentions of the President. It appeared that he "did not choose" to remain long in office.