"Operation Purity"

From Buenos Aires, a TIME correspondent cabled a startling prediction: Argentina's forthcoming (Feb. 24) presidential elections, if actually held, might indeed be honest. Reason: the Army, which had publicly and repeatedly pledged itself, with whatever honor and reputation it had left, to guarantee free elections, stood bound to carry out that promise.

In the greystone mansion that houses Argentina's Foreign Ministry, Chief of Staff General Carlos von der Becke last week told assembled foreign ambassadors what the Army planned: an "operation purity," soldiered by a 250,000-man patrol, which would assure electoral honesty from the moment voters entered the polls until the last vote was impartially counted, a month or so later.

But if Buenos Aires rumor was right, the election might never come off, Strong Man Candidate Juan Domingo Peron might be planning a Putsch. The reasons: 1) bickering in his own camp (a fortnight before election his backers still could not agree on minor candidates); 2) the well-mobilized organization that turned out 150,000 enthusiasts in Buenos Aires last week to cheer the Democratic Union's Candidate Jose P. Tamborini.

Still vocally confident at week's end, Peron set out from Buenos Aires for Rosario, Argentina's second largest city, got workers' cheers, was slightly jolted when his dining car jumped the tracks. He also appealed abroad for friendship. He conveniently forgot that his street fighters still shouted against "Yankee imperialism," that last fortnight he had himself made an unsupported charge that the U.S. Embassy was aiding arms shipments to his opponents. Now Peron called for "mutual comprehension" between Argentina and the U.S., said he hoped for U.S. capital because "it would bring the organizing, technical and progressive spirit distinctive of North American temperament." This week Washington answered--and the answer was like a blast from a siege-gun (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

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