Big Red Schoolhouse

When a mysterious couple rented huge Stella Maris estate in Buenos Aires' residential town of General Pacheco, the villagers were naturally curious, buzzed about who the strangers were, where they came from, what they were doing. No one could find out. Not even delivery boys got past the front gate. What went on inside the two houses, the annex, in the fine garden, the orchard, swimming pool and volleyball field? The windows were curtained; a seemingly endless stream of strangers went to and fro; and they ate enough food for a platoon. Townfolk talked about smugglers, maybe even revolutionaries.

Good Morning, Professor. Provincial Criminal Investigation Director Benito Ibanez listened to the gossip and sent a few men around for a routine snoop. When they got nowhere Ibaez sallied forth with 70 armed cops and barged into the larger of the two houses gun in hand, ready for anything. Not even Ibanez was prepared for what he saw. Flanked by a Red star bearing the hammer and sickle, a tall, mustachioed teacher was holding class for some two dozen adult students. Ibannez had stumbled onto the "Aurora" college--an international center for training Communist propagandists.

Amid a torrent of abuse, the police whisked the head man, one "Professor" Arturo Rogelio Ferrari, and his students off to the station. It was quite a haul: two lawyers from Bolivia, a literature professor from Ecuador, a schoolteacher from Caracas, another from Panama, a tailor from Colombia, a seamstress from Peru, a mason frorrwltaly. All were following a six-month course that had started four months before. All lived in strict discipline. Reveille was at 6 a.m. to the strains of the Soviet Air Force march. The "students" studied Latin American politics and economics, the place of women in Communism, Russian history, ideology, public speaking, propaganda, etc. The most convincing debaters and public speakers got special diplomas. Money to finance the school came from the Argentine Communist Party, but the parties in each student's country paid for his trip and living expenses.

"I Can Be a Lawyer Too." By the time Crime Chief Ibanez returned to headquarters with his prisoners, two of Argentina's top Commie lawyers, Julio Viaggio and Rodolfo Alfaro, were waiting with writs of habeas corpus. "Aha, I can be a lawyer too," snapped the chief. Where was Professor Ferrari's boardinghouse permit? "This is against municipal law." With that, Ibanez closed Stella Maris, charged its tenants with illicit operations.

Last week the mysterious Aurora was fading, but few people doubted that a new one would open somewhere else. The federal police estimated that within the last year alone Argentine Reds have received some $30 million from abroad.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.