Perceptive Pardon

Juan Peron neatly finessed his most troublesome foe last week by bestowing freedom upon him.

For ten months Ricardo Balbin, leader of the Radical opposition, had sat in jail for calling the President a "dictator" and a "liar" in a campaign speech (TIME, May 1, Dec. 11). During that time, criticism of such harsh and humorless punishment for a political opponent had risen sharply both at home and abroad. Balbin, more popular than ever before, shouted from his cell: "I have no regrets. I am less a prisoner than those on the outside."

Last week President Peron ordered a pardon for Balbin because "a definitive sentence [had] not yet been pronounced" on him. With these bland words, Peron disarmed his critics. Balbin went to his home. But the law of desacato (disrespect for public officials), under which Balbin had been sent to jail, remained very much in effect.

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