Pines of Honduras

Hondurans sported pine sprigs in their lapels, grinned a new greeting "Pinos de Honduras." Pine twigs appeared on Government desks. For this piney atmosphere, a tiny, cherubic Guatemalan, Juan Jose Orozco Posadas, was responsible.

Orozco, private secretary to Guatemalan President Juan Jose Arevalo, had been concerned about the repressed democrats of neighboring Honduras (which, with Nicaragua, had the last dictator-run government in Central America). Orozco went on the radio, broadcast to his neighbors: "Only the pines growing high on Honduras' proud mountains have remained free in that martyred land. And their roots go deep. 'Pines of Honduras' must become the password in the struggle to make Honduras free."

Last week he continued to broadcast the theme to his listening neighbors. He knew that he had started something. Honduran Congress President Plutarco Munoz had roared that "pines of Honduras really means that a revolutionary ought to be strung up on every pine in Honduras." The pine emblem had struck home.

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