Chaco Backfire

In the cool of one morning last week, army officers in high-collared khaki blouses rushed frantically through the streets of Asuncion, placing their troops at strategic corners. Over the walls of the Military College peered little brown soldiers, guns pointed at the nearby Government House. Out at Campo Grande aviation school, cadets stood by their poised machines. But the careful preparations laid by army and navy* garrisons were unnecessary, for their leaders executed a neat little revolution without firing a shot, placed the Government under military control, forced the resignation of the Cabinet.

The army's leader, Lieut. Colonel Ramon Paredes, issued a manifesto: "The unanimous will of the army and navy is that the eminent citizen, Colonel Franco, will continue President of the Government." Two days later, however, ''Eminent Citizen" Rafael Franco, who seized the Presidency also by a bloodless coup in 1936, found himself somewhat less eminent, was "asked" to resign, because he refused to form a Cabinet amenable to the military. Law Professor Felix Paiva, Dean and Rector of the University of Asuncion, Vice President in 1920, was named Provisional President.

The cause of this new revolution was a peace conference. The still-simmering dispute between Bolivia and Paraguay over the muggy Gran Chaco region has been in the hands of a conference, meeting intermittently in Buenos Aires since the war ended. Unfortunately for President Franco, he allowed the conferees to persuade him to order his troops back from the front-line positions where they have squatted for two years. Army officers, bitterly resentful that Franco was throwing away their bloody-won victory, carried out their coup, then gave him first a chance to change his mind, and finally the boot.

*Inland Paraguay has a navy of five gunboats plying the Paraguay and Parana Rivers: rival Bolivia has no navy.

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