"To the Rear--March!"

For a while it seemed that Argentina might give up its "third position" between democracy and Communism, and join the U.S. and the United Nations in the Korean war. Answering a request from U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie for ground troops, Foreign Minister Hipolito Jesus Paz replied last week: "In accordance with our desire to comply with our obligations as a member of the United Nations ... we are waiting for the unified command to enter into direct communication with the Argentine government."

Did this mean that Argentina would eventually send troops? Well, not quite. But many neutrality-loving Argentines, whose last shooting war* ended in 1870, took it as an urgent invitation to Armageddon. In Buenos Aires, Communist and nationalist street-corner peace meetings drew crowds; fist fights broke out and scores of arrests were made.

The Communist and nationalist agitators had clearly touched a sensitive nerve and stirred a deep-seated popular reaction. Juan Peron, who understands his people very well, lost no time in telling them what they wanted to hear. "This afternoon," the President announced to a trade-union meeting, "I was asked in connection with a very important international matter what attitude I would adopt . . . Argentina knows what she has got to do today, and what she will do tomorrow. She will do so in her own good time and for her own benefit--not for anybody else's."

This meant: no troops now.

"*Against Paraguay, with Brazil and Uruguay as allies.

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