Lies & Imbecilities?

Ever since his rise to power, President Juan D. Peron has been taking potshots at Buenos Aires' independent La Prensa. Last week he fired a broadside. "For a hundred years, "the President told a railway union congress, "La Prensa has pontificated with endless lies and imbecilities."

The cause of Peron's blast was La Prensa's sympathetic coverage of charges made in the Chamber of Deputies three weeks ago against IAPI, the official state trading agency. A hard-hitting anti-Peron deputy named Agustin Rodriguez Araya had introduced into the record 40 questions that he wanted to ask the Minister of Economy, lAPI's head. A typical question: "What compelling reasons were there for handing over without payment to the majordomo of the presidential country house 20 jeeps which were later found being used by a morning newspaper [Se-nora Peron's Democracia]"

Rodriguez Araya was expelled from the Chamber on a charge of having referred to Peron and his deputies as "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." He went into exile in Uruguay. But La Prensa kept harping on his accusations. Said a lead editorial just before Peron's speech last week: "It is the national administration which is compromised by these charges. It is the national administration which is responsible for IAPI."

At the end of his attack on the newspaper, President Peron said: "I hope La Prensa will pardon this digression, which is after all only one small comment, whereas it publishes articles against me every day of the year." Next day La Prensa printed his speech without comment.

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