Red Hunt

After two months of military government President Pedro Ramirez and his Cabinet of generals and admirals last week met and solemnly decided what Argentina needed most: a good Red Hunt.

Toward this end the Government:

> Suspended 32 Communist papers;

> Jailed an estimated 1,000 Communists;

> Burned 80,000 books valued at 300,000 pesos, including volumes by Upton Sin clair, John Dos Passes, Karl Marx, and the Dean of Canterbury's Soviet Power;

> Closed 344 social and political clubs charged with Communist infiltration;

> Shut down unions representing 75% of labor, jailed an estimated 1,200 workers;

> Banned Communist films and released an anti-Communist picture to cinema houses ;

> Opened a new concentration camp in Patagonia, with 84 Communists among the first tenants (on moving day sympathizers made two unsuccessful attempts to stop the prison train).

In crushing "extremist ideologies," the Government dealt less harshly with Nazis and Fascists. The pro-Nazi newspaper El Pampero was closed for five days and Bandera Argentina for ten. Bandera Argentina was reprimanded for insulting President Roosevelt in an editorial en titled "Insolent Ultimatum," dealing with the President's request that neutrals refuse refuge to fleeing Nazis and Fascists.

Then the Government itself censored Roosevelt's speech, deleting adjectives un friendly to fascists.

U.S. Ambassador to Argentina Norman Armour returns to the U.S. this week.

Diplomatic sources said he left Argentina because the Ramirez government had broken its promise to sever relations with the Axis if the U.S. recognized the revo lutionary regime. As Armour left, Ramirez denied his regime was a dictatorship.

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