The Long Drift

When Argentina's army ousted President Arturo Illia last June, it moved with the swiftness of a rifle bullet. Congress, the supreme court and all political parties were dissolved; all state governors were dismissed; and a three-man junta was installed, headed by Provisional President Juan Carlos Ongania, 52. Then suddenly all was quiet. Week after week, the nation waited for some signs of positive leadership. But all that came were some lofty, if vague, social and economic goals, a puritanical television attack on pornography--and not much else. By last week, Ongania had not even completed his Cabinet.

If the government is drifting, however, Ongania does not want to be reminded of the fact. Fortnight ago, he abruptly closed down a satirical magazine that had dared to poke fun at his walrus mustache. He was even angrier over the grumbling at the University of Buenos Aires, long a hotbed of Communist and far-left activity. Fearing mass student unrest, he accused all nine state universities of "subversive action," wiped out their traditional autonomy, and put them under the control of the national Ministry of Education. That night, police moved onto university campuses, throwing tear gas and swinging clubs and rifle butts.

Last week, after an angry outcry throughout Argentina and the rest of Latin America, Ongania called his first press conference on television and stuck by his decree, announcing plans to reorganize the entire educational system. Moving on to other "concrete guidelines" for his government, Ongania made a few other points. Tax evasion, smuggling, and profiteering by food distributors would be implacably suppressed. Within 60 days, he promised, administrators of all state-owned enterprises would come up with a program for cutting costs. What is more, some of the enterprises might be returned to private hands. For one thing, said Ongania flatly, the government planned to divest itself of its 36 radio stations and its single TV channel. How many other state-owned companies would be sold? Ongania had no immediate answer.

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