Aid & Comfort

The angriest rebuke for any nation not at war with the U.S. was hurled by Secretary of State Cordell Hull at Argentina last week (see U.S. AT WAR).

The State Department, giving a "summary of the position of the U.S. Government," declared that: Argentina had "deliberately violated the pledge" it took at the 1942 Rio de Janeiro Conference to cooperate with the rest of the hemisphere against the Axis. It had "openly and notoriously" given "aid and comfort" to the enemies of the United Nations for two and a half years. The dominant power in its government "was, and continues to be, in the hands of pro-Axis elements." Therefore, the U.S. concluded that the American Republics and their United Nations associates should "firmly adhere to the present policy of nonrecognition of the [President Edelmiro] Farrell regime" until Argentina demonstrated a change in its policy "by unequivocal acts."

In Buenos Aires, extreme nationalist organizations seized the golden opportunity to stage street demonstrations against what they termed Yankee bullying. Pro-Nazi newspapers, El Federal, Cabildo, La Fronda screamed the same note. Foreign Minister Orlando Peluffo, in the first speech he had made in his three months in office, nicely balanced a protest of good-neighborly intentions with a proud declaration of independence. Many an Argentine who had looked on the military regime with a fishy eye was now moved to support it as defender of his country's sovereignty.

Had any of Secretary Hull's shots hit the target? Near the center of it was Juan Domingo Peron, Vice President, Minister of War, Secretary of Labor and Welfare, master of President Farrell and dominant figure in the military government. Peron has apparently swung from extreme to moderate nationalism. That is, as a devout Argentine-firster, he no longer considers either hatred of the Yanquis or bundling with the Axis indispensable to his career. Hull's blast inferentially called for a governmental house cleaning of all pro-Axis personalities, a national house cleaning of all German business enterprises. Peron threw some Axiphiles out of the Government a month ago. But others remain. The Argentines' jealous love of their sovereignty forbade Peron last week to yield farther in this direction. But he did something more popular, cleverer, more likely to produce better feeling between Argentina and the anti-Axis world. He loosened the bonds of the Argentine press.

Newspaper Renaissance. Pro-democratic Argentine newspapers had been lock-jawed Charley McCarthys. Now, the Government announced, they were free to publish what they pleased. La Prensa, La Nation and other anti-Axis papers promptly printed the full text of Secretary Hull's angry statement, or made thorough summaries of it. They followed this up by -publishing columns of sharp editorial comment from London, Washington, New York and various Latin American capitals.

Declared the great La Prensa in its lead editorial: "The gravest and most regrettable error" of anti-U.S. President Ramon Castillo was his muzzling of the press in December, 1941. It put him out of touch with Argentine public opinion, led to the unfortunate consequences from which the nation still suffered. Now, hoped La Prensa, the misunderstandings which conspired against hemisphere solidarity would disappear as the Argentine press recovered its right to express its opinions.

Last week crowds of demonstrators marched in the streets of Buenos Aires, chanting "Argentina, si! Yanquis, no!" They paraded before the U.S. Embassy, threw rocks at the English Pharmacy, at Charley's American Bar. They also rocked the newly freed La Prensa and other anti-Axis papers.

But in their homes, Argentines read their newspapers with livelier interest. Long sheltered from outside criticism, few have realized their Government's unpopularity in the anti-Axis world. Now, if their press kept its comparative freedom, they might learn more of the truth.

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