The Noose

For weeks Peron had been maneuvering his flyswatter nearer & nearer the gadfly Socialist weekly La Vanguardia. First he closed Vanguardia's B.A. plant, on the deadpan excuse that it violated municipal ordinances (TIME, Sept. 8). Since then the Socialists have skipped from one secret printing plant to another, sometimes publishing on wrapping paper, but always publishing. Last week Peron seemed to have the swatter poised; a new decree required each paper to carry its printer's name and address on penalty of confiscation of the issue.

The big commercial dailies also felt the threat of a swat. For four months, newsprint imports had been banned. Now the Government was letting paper in if buyers surrendered part of it for resale to the noisy pro-Peron press. Staunchly independent La Prensa, desperate for newsprint, was asked to give up half its incoming shipments; the more tractable El Mundo chain (one newspaper, six magazines, a radio station) could keep 70%. The warning to the press was clear: angle your stories right to stay in business.

No one could fairly compare Peron's Argentina to a European police state. Socialists, even Communists, could stage street-corner meetings and shout bitterly against the Government, if they dared the stones of exuberant Peronistas. But the press throttle was ominous, even though Peronistas, who blandly assert that the press is free, could point to La Prensa's reprinting excerpts from last week's warning by the New York Times: "This is the classic first step by which dictatorship is imposed upon a people. By its very nature, dictatorship moves inexorably to stifle the voice of a free press and to destroy the sources of trustworthy information. . . . In following in this respect the pattern endorsed by Stalin and Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, Senor Peron has embarked on a course of infinite danger to his country."

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