The Resistance

Lights burned late in government offices last week as President Pedro Aramburu and his military advisers checked over the intelligence reports on a plot against them; then the officers acted. Cops and Marines burst into a meeting in La Plata, a meat-packing city 35 miles southeast of Buenos Aires, and arrested some 50 persons. Among them were General Heraclio Ferrazzano and Colonel Norberto Ugolini, a pair of cashiered officers, who, loyal to ex-Strongman Juan Peron, fought off insurrectionists at the Rio Santiago naval base during last September's successful anti-Peron revolution. Police followed up by questioning between 400 and 500 other known Peronistas.

The nipped plot was a forceful reminder that there are plenty of ardent Peronistas left in Argentina. Propaganda-wise, they pass around pro-Peron leaflets, spread rumors that the revolutionary government is about to fall, shout jingles in the streets: "Ladron o no ladron, queremos a Peron [Thief or not, we want Peron]!" Revolution-wise, they seem to limit themselves so far to sabotage, even in last week's plotting. Squads of Peronistas, called "Resistance Commandos," are blamed for several recent attempts to wreck trains and for a series of spectacular fires on the Buenos Aires waterfront.

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