Cold War

U.S.-Argentine relations, bad for years, are getting worse. Recently Juan Peron sent a directive to his top ministers saying that a state of "cold war" exists between the two countries. Last week Peron's propaganda hucksters were obediently spreading a vitriolic hate-the-yanquis campaign. Peron himself, since admitting last winter that Argentina is in an economic mess, has loudly blamed it all on "Wall Street." Now he seems to be obsessed with the belief that the U.S. is "spying" on his government.

Secret Dinner. Within the past month Peron's police have secretly picked up at least two U.S. Government employees in Buenos Aires and grilled them. Both work for the U.S. Information Service. Roberto Mujica Lainez, a onetime Argentine newsman, was confronted at police headquarters with a stack of papers taken from his home. One showed a diagram of the seating arrangement for a dinner party he had just given. "What are these blueprints for?" barked a cop. Finally released, Mujica was ordered not to tell a word about the questioning.

The tone of the official press is venomously anti-U.S. A typical issue of the newspaper La Epoca last week contained eight out & out anti-U.S. propaganda pieces, the mildest of them an "expose" proving that Wall Street manipulates all U.S. presidential candidates. A recent cartoon in the bulletin of the Argentine Confederation of Labor showed President Truman as a Statue of Liberty turned gallows, with a Negro lynch victim swinging from his outstretched arm. Recently Peron's cold warriors have even spread scurrilous pamphlets against the U.S. President through the U.S. mails.

Lessons Learned. The reasons for Peron's anti-U.S. campaign are rooted in his conviction that Argentina should be the leader of South America, and in jealousy of U.S. influence and prestige. The campaign also serves as a handy way of diverting attention from Argentina's domestic troubles. What can the U.S. do about it? It has learned that denouncing Peron only makes him more popular at home. More recently it has learned that sending one businessman-ambassador after another, tempting Peron with the illusion that he can still swing a bail-out deal with the U.S., is worse than useless. En route now to Buenos Aires is a different kind of ambassador, a capable but little-known careerman who is unlikely either to sass or salute a defiant neighbor. Even Peron should be able to grasp that Albert Nufer, 57, a longtime State Department deskman whose only previous ambassadorial assignment was in El Salvador, is likely to ask nothing, offer nothing. For the present, U.S. policy toward Peron will be to maintain correct surface relations--but the surface will be icy.

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