Sacrifice Play

It was a historic week for Argentina. It marked the official end to the war-born feud between the U.S. and Argentina--and brought with it the resignations of Juan Domingo Peron's archfoe, Assistant Secretary of State Spruille Braden, and his good friend and "apologist, dyspeptic Ambassador George Messersmith (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). The week was also the end of Peron's first year as President.

But for on-the-spot Argentines, the week was notable for an act even more dramatic: the ousting of Police Chief Juan Filomeno Velazco, the toughest man in the Government, the country's top nationalist, and longtime friend of Juan Peron.

Peron knew that he had to get rid of Velazco. Diplomatic observers saw it as the quid pro quo for Braden's resignation. Velazco represented the extreme anti-U.S. feeling in Argentina; his barb-tongued champions of "national dignity" continued to hack at Peron's new, conciliatory foreign policy.

But Peron was deep in Velazco's debt. Back in 1944, Velazco police had charged, sabers swinging, into the Buenos Aires crowds which had turned a mass celebration of the liberation of Paris into a tumultuous demonstration against Peron's pro-Nazi military regime. A year later, police and nationalists had sprung Juan Peron back to power after spontaneous democratic clamor forced him into a brief, one-day exile.

All this President Peron remembered last week as he strode through the heavily carpeted chambers of the Casa Rosada, chain-smoking strong "43" cigarets, trying to make up his mind. His decision was finally made between ballet numbers in Buenos Aires' rococo Teatro Colon. He dispatched quaking Interior Minister Angel Borlenghi to the block-square police headquarters in Calle Moreno to hand Velazco his ultimatum. Borlenghi had reason to quake; Velazco had publicly slapped him only four months before.

But those who expected a Velazco explosion were disappointed. He went quietly, and, for the time being, said nothing. Most Argentines expected that he would be heard from again.

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