Very Serious Thing

It was after midnight when Senor Dr. Don Carlos Leiva, Salvadorean charge d'affaires, returned from a friendly card game to his legation on Connecticut

Avenue one night last week. In the dark hallway a light was flashed into his face. He saw the glint of a revolver. "Stick 'em up!" a hard voice ordered. Instead, Dr. Leiva, 51 and husky, fell upon the intruder, grappled for his throat. They wrestled about. The pistol fired wildly. "Pete! Pete!" called the stranger and up from the basement came "Pete" to join the tussle. Dr. Leiva was given a hard pate-pounding with a revolver butt. Blood blinded him. He dropped to the floor. The burglars escaped out a rear entrance.

Somehow the doughty diplomat staggered across the street to Achilles Orphanos' delicatessen store where the alarm was sounded. An ambulance carried the chief representative in the U. S. of the Government of Salvador to the Emergency Hospital where 27 stitches were taken in his head. X-rays showed a fractured skull.

Police investigators quickly discovered that it was diplomatic liquor the burglars were after. They had jimmied their way into the legation, almost wrecked the liquor storeroom in the basement. At the back fence, cases were stacked up for removal. Seventeen boxes of fine whiskey had already been hauled away.

When Secretary of State Stimson read of the assault in his morning newspaper, he immediately wrote Dr. Leiva: "I was shocked to learn of the injuries which you suffered last night and I hasten to extend to you an expression of my regret. I assure you the police will make every effort to apprehend the offenders. I trust that you will recover promptly and I want you to know that you have my deepest sympathy." To newsmen the Secretary of State declared that it was a "very serious thing" when diplomats failed to get the protection to which their official immunity entitles them. President Hoover sent his personal physician, Dr. Joel Boone, to the hospital to see Dr. Leiva.

The Washington police department was asked to explain why it did not give foreign embassies and legations better protection. Its chief insisted they got the best attention the force could afford on its limited budget.

Meanwhile Dr. Leiva, not so badly hurt that he could not express himself freely, told newsmen: "It might have happened to anybody. But the Washington police force is the worst I have ever known. . . . One man [during the fight] thrust his hand into my face and I nearly bit his little finger off."

Hopefully he added: "Sometimes such bites are poisonous. The police may be able to find him when he goes to a doctor, for I bit to the bone."

Under international law Dr. Leiva could collect handsome damages from the U. S. Government for his injuries and the rape of his liquor storeroom. Following U. S. precedent, he might even land Salvadorean marines in Washington to safeguard Salvadorean life & property. Good-humored, he took no action, made no claim.

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