Beauty of an Ideal

For months, President Peron has been steadily tightening the screw on such opposition as still exists in Argentina. Oppressive new laws have been ground out by a congress systematically weakened by the liquidation of opposition deputies. Over 20 anti-Peron periodicals have been closed up in the past five weeks; charges of libel and account-juggling have been brought against the leading independent dailies La Nacion and La Prensa (TIME, Dec. 12).

In a speech last fortnight, Peron disclosed for the first time what all this was leading up to. He would like a new "loyal opposition" party, with the accent on loyalty--rather than opposition--to Peronista ideas. "If I could bequeath something great to the republic," the President mused, "my legacy would be my party--and opposing it a second one, organic and decent. At present in opposition there are only political gangs . . . We must put an end to political gangs."

Going even further, his loyal wife, Evita, indicated last week that she thought the present kind of opposition little short of blasphemy. In a rousing speech to a women's trade-union group, she cried: "I sometimes think that President Peron has ceased to be a man like other men--that he is rather an ideal incarnate! For this, our movement may cherish him as its one leader without fearing that he will disappear on the unhappy day that Peron personally is missing."

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