Freedom to Maneuver

Buenos Aires was still half asleep one morning last week when the military men who run the country made a crucial political move. From hot, muggy Martin Garcia Island in the River Plate 30 miles north of the capital, a military transport buzzed aloft carrying ousted President Arturo Frondizi, his daughter, his private secretary and 2 1/2 tons of Frondizi's belongings, mostly books. A few hours later Frondizi alighted at San Carlos de Bariloche, a summer fishing and winter ski resort in the Argentine Andes, 850 miles southwest of Buenos Aires.

Nearly a year after his overthrow, Frondizi, noticeably heavier and his hair gone white, was still technically under arrest. But times--and his fortunes--have changed. Frondizi's first stop was a comfortable, Swiss-style chalet overlooking a lake 13 miles outside of Bariloche. But when he complained that it was too remote from his friends, the government obligingly moved him to a hotel nearer town. Frondizi's visitors, so tightly limited by the military when he was on Martin Garcia, will be limited only by Frondizi's wishes and Bariloche's remote ness from the capital.

In one of those curious twists that Argentina's tangled politics takes, moderate military commanders now believe that the Frondizi they once feared may hold the key to the elections next June 23. The soldiers fear even more the 3,000,000-man political organization left behind in 1955 by ousted Dictator Juan Peron. Still the most powerful political force in the country, the Peronistas are hated by the officers who overthrew the dictator--and who turned out Frondizi when, a year ago, he permitted Peronistas to run in congressional and provincial elections, in which they scored impressive triumphs.

Frondizi's new role, as the military men see it, is to negotiate a national front between his Intransigent Radicals, the Peronistas and other parties. At Bariloche. Frondizi will have the freedom to negotiate such a coalition. The agile Frondizi seems agreeable to the idea. Whether the Peronistas will participate in such a national front is less clear. So far they insist on full legality for themselves or nothing.

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