Jungle Journalism

One and only one U. S. journalist has had the manly gumption to go jungaleering in Nicaragua and cable home true details of the war now being fought between U. S. Marines and the indomitable Nicaraguan guerilla, General Augusto Calderon Sandino (TIME, Aug. 1). The unique jungle journalist is Carleton Beals, now special correspondent in Nicaragua for The Nation, liberal, trenchant, enterprising Manhattan weekly review. Although Correspondent Beals was both prolix and tediously descriptive of scenery in his early despatches, it is now possible to cull one excellent purple passage and then get down to the solid news of the first interview obtained by any U. S. journalist from General Sandino. Mr. Beals, author, lecturer, and onetime schoolmaster at Mexico City, writes:

Purple Approach: "More jungle--humid, reeking. A soldier plucks twenty dollars' worth of purple orchids (New York quotation) and sticks them in the band of his sombrero. Troops of screaming monkeys swing past, stopping occasionally to grimace at us. From the depths of the forest, mountain lions roar. Huge macaws wing across the sky, crying hoarsely and flashing crimson. We ford and re-ford the north-flowing tributary, for endless hours we toil across the Yali range, and finally drop down near Jinotega in another night of driving rain over a road where the horses roll pitifully, up to their bellies in mud. ... I was finally brought to ... General Sandino's headquarters ... at San Rafael del Norte ... in the Department of Jinotega on the high flank of the Yali Range."

Sandino Described. "His regular, curved eyebrows are arched high above liquid black eyes without visible pupils. His eyes are of remarkable mobility and refraction to light--quick, intense eyes. ... He is short, not more than five feet five. When I saw him he was dressed in a uniform of dark brown with almost black puttees, immaculately polished; a silk red-and-black handkerchief knotted about his throat; and a broad-brimmed Texas Stetson hat, pulled low over his forehead and pinched shovel-shaped. Occasionally, as we conversed, he shoved his sombrero to the back of his head and hitched his chair forward. . . .

"His ideas are precisely, epigrammatically ordered. There was not a major problem in the whole Nicaraguan question that he dodged or that I even needed to raise. In military matters I found him most assured; a bit flamboyant and boastful and with a tendency to exaggerate his successes. However, he is exceedingly astute, knows the country well, and, with luck breaking even, can remain in the field indefinitely. By keeping the mountainous country north and east at his back, he cannot be cut off by 2,500 marines or 5,000; and he can shuttle back and forth . . . across Nicaragua, enjoying a fairly adequate food supply, tapping rich agricultural sectors, and passing rapidly from point to point; whereas the American troops, to cover this same region, and maintain intact their line of communications with Managua and Leon, must swing over an arc half again as long."

Demands. "Sandino in rapid fire gave me the basis of his demands in the present struggle: first, evacuation of Nicaraguan territory by the marines; second, the appointment of an impartial civilian President chosen by the notables of the three parties--one who has never been President and never a candidate for the Presidency; third, supervision of the elections by Latin America,

" 'The day these conditions are carried out,' declared Sandino, 'I will immediately cease all hostilities and disband my forces. In addition I shall never accept a government position, elective or otherwise.'

"He left his chair and paced to and fro to emphasize this point. He stated vehemently: 'Never, never will I accept public office. I am fully capable of gaining a livelihood for myself and my wife in some humble, happy pursuit. By trade I am a mechanic and if necessary I will return to my trade. Nor will I ever take up arms again in any . . . domestic struggle --only in case of a new foreign invasion.' "

Senate Warned. The crowning achievement of Correspondent Beals and The Nation, last week, was to transmit to the U. S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee a warning in the autograph of General Augusto Calderon Sandino: "I demand the immediate withdrawal of the invading troops. Otherwise from this date on I cannot be responsible for the safety of any North American official resident in Nicaraguan territory."

Observers heaped all praise upon The Nation for its success in interpreting to U. S. citizens the only Commander with whom they are now at war.