A Short-Lived Party

"Peronazo!" (Peronist blockbuster) crowed the Buenos Aires daily Cronica. Actually, Juan Peron's sweeping victory in Argentina's presidential election last week was more Like the fizzle of a damp firecracker. Nobody seriously thought the old caudillo would lose, least of all Peron himself.

He made only a handful of appearances, none outside the capital, and left most of the campaigning to his vice-presidential running mate, his wife Isabelita (see box). In fact, the only unknown in the singularly boring election was the margin of victory. It turned out to be a whopping 61.9%. Peron's closest rival, the centrist Radical Party's perennial loser Ricardo Balbin, received only 24.3% of the vote, virtually repeating the dismal showing he recorded against Peron more than two decades ago.

Thus, after an enforced 18-year hiatus, Peron was back in office. It was a remarkable comeback for a man whose second presidential term had resulted in his ouster and exile by the military. Dancing, singing and climbing atop cars, Peron's legions of supporters jammed Buenos Aires' streets to celebrate the victory even before the election returns were in. The short-lived party, however, was spoiled by an ugly act of violence that threatened to set off yet another round of crises in Argentina.

Terrorist Acts. The trouble started on the day after the election. Interim President Raul Lastiri, in one of his last official acts, announced that he was outlawing the Trotskyite People's Revolutionary Army, or E.R.P. Lastiri's action was certainly justified. E.R.P. kidnapings had continued up to Election Day, and there had been terrorist acts by a variety of other extremist groups (a British executive was seized in Buenos Aires last week), although none of the top Peronists had been hit. The truce ended with Lastiri's announcement.

Within 24 hours, a band of suspected E.R.P. assassins ambushed Labor Leader Jose Rucci at one of the hideouts he used in central Buenos Aires; his body was riddled with 26 bullets. Rucci, 48, who was hated by the left for his virulent verbal attacks on "Bolshies" within the unions, was head of the 3.1 million-member General Confederation of Labor, which made him one of the most powerful men in Argentina.

The C.G.T. instantly called a 30-hour strike, which brought the country to a standstill. In Buenos Aires, food stores and even the airports were shut down. A commuter train was burned, apparently by enraged riders.

The strike faced Peron with a dilemma. He could not demand that it be called off for fear of angering the right wing of his party, which admired Rucci. On the other hand, he could not try to appease the E.R.P. by backing away from the tough antiterrorist position he undoubtedly had dictated to his surrogate President without losing face. At week's end Peron had issued no statement on the assassinations.

Rucci's assassination, the strike and the apparent retaliatory assassination a day later of a leftist youth-labor leader were poor omens for the future of Argentina. The country is plagued not only by terrorism but by bitter political factionalism and economic decay. Peron was returned to office by voters who clearly hoped against hope that el Lider, at once a kind of Latin Mao and second Mussolini, might magically solve the country's problems. The task would be difficult enough for a man in his prime, but Peron is 77 and ailing. The tragedy may be that Argentina's fate is now in the hands of a man who has the will to change it, but is too old and too sick to do so.

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