SOUTH AMERICA: ARMIES IN COMMAND

SOUTH AMERICA'S present political plight can be summed up in one stark statistic: three out of every four of the continent's citizens now live under military regimes of one form or another. That ratio was created by the imposition two weeks ago of overt military rule in Brazil, where half the continent's 180 million people live. Yet even before that event, armed forces were in command in four other im portant countries--Argentina, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay--which stretch from the peaks of the Andes to the desolate plains of Tierra del Fuego.

Since 1930, South America has been shaken by 39 military coups, affecting all but one (Uruguay) of the continent's ten principal countries. But the new set of coups is significantly different. Though there were some exceptions, by and large the military men in the past were eager to return to their barracks. After, of course, they had replaced the civilian regime that they had ousted with one more to their taste. Increasingly, the more recent military leaders do not share that retiring attitude. Confident and cocky activists, they intend to hold on to the power they seize in order to lead their countries themselves. For better or worse, South America's political destiny rests more and more in the hands of a new kind of soldier turned national administrator.

A Better Job. In a sense, the South American military can hardly be blamed for seeking to exercise political power. After all, they otherwise would have almost nothing to do. Their countries are not in danger either from outside attacks or surprise raids by neighbors. Yet the continent's nations keep nearly 600,000 men on active duty and spend more money ($1 billion a year) on military costs and armaments, including French-built Mirage supersonic jet fighters, than they receive from the U.S. under the Alliance for Progress and other aid programs ($776 million).

In South America, however, military hardware has uses other than defense. It affords armies an undisputed strength at home that makes them the continent's most effective political force. In the present circumstances, the vast majority of the officers feel that the armies need ail the strength they can get. Though Fidel Castro is not their idol, South American youths, who represent by far the fastest-growing segment of the population, are swinging ever more to the left. The officers, who mostly embody conservative, lower-middle-class views, hope to arrest that movement with tough government action. They are also thoroughly disgusted with civilian politicians, who have failed to cope with the urgent problems of their countries. Trained in their own staff col leges or U.S. military schools, the officers, especially the younger ones, feel that they can do a better job.

If they reach that conclusion, South American officers are not bound by the strict moral prohibition against interfering in politics that would inhibit Anglo-Saxon military men. As a result of a legacy that dates back to the military's role in liberating the continent from Spain in the 1800s and to its subsequent support for social reform, the officers consider themselves the saviors and protectors of their countries' wellbeing. If the exercise of this lofty mission entails tossing a few politicians out of office, the military conscience remains untwinged.

Disgusted by Democracy. The critics of South America's military claim that the officers intervene not so much as their nations' guardians, but rather for the pleasure of power combined with a basic contempt for personal liberty and the cumbersome processes of parliamentary rule. Another complaint is that military regimes favor the status quo and thus impede social progress; they sup press freedom of expression and alienate the very factions, especially the students and intellectuals, that should be drawn into South America's all too narrow political mainstream.

In partial defense of the new officer class, its members are undoubtedly imbued with a strong sense of patriotism. They genuinely believe that they care more about their countries than the civilians do. But this lofty conviction tends to make them rigid, narrow, thin-skinned and puritanical. Criticism stirs up all their subconscious worries that having no wars to fight, they really have no social role but are parasites on society. Their staff schools, where they take immense quantities of notes, teach them to worry about "subversion" and "national security" to the point where they see threats everywhere--as one Brazilian general lately did in the proposal of a Catholic girls' school to provide sex education before the age of 17. Plays and movies that criticize the military must be censored, as must plays containing dirty words or lewd gestures. Preoccupied with such trifles, they are sometimes blind to the greater social and economic ills of their countries.

Durable Dictator. Whatever the mer its or demerits of the military's case, the takeovers are triggered, at least in part, by the weakness of South America's democracies. The events in Brazil that have led to the virtual dictatorship of former General Arthur da Costa e Silva began in 1964 only after leftist President Joao Goulart had shoved the country toward economic chaos and perhaps even Communism. In that same year, the Bolivian military, led by Air Force General Rene Barrientos, seized power to avert a full-scale revolt by the country's volatile tin miners. They were angry over civilian President Victor Paz Estenssoro's rewriting of the constitution in order to succeed himself.

General Juan Carlos Ongania took over in Argentina in 1966 in an effort to halt a potentially disastrous economic drift that had accelerated under President Arturo Illia, a well-meaning but ineffectual administrator. General Juan Velasco Alvarado led a coup in October against Peru's imaginative President Fernando Belaunde Terry for many reasons, not the least of which was the country's rapid descent into substantial debt. But Belaunde had, in fact, been a good President, and even by Latin American standards a coup was uncalled for. Not quite fitting any category is Paraguayan General Alfredo Stroessner, South America's most durable dictator, who took over in 1954 to quell the political bickering that threatened to plunge the country into chaos--and has simply stayed on, not to reform his country in the main but rather because he likes his job.

Solutions Make Problems. Once in power, the military inevitably create new problems as they solve old ones. Accomplishing the nearly impossible job of bringing under some control Brazil's ruinous inflation, the army's unbending political attitudes alienated so many Brazilians that the military men felt isolated and unappreciated (see following story). In Bolivia, Barrientos' army-backed regime has brought peace to the tin mines on whose exports the country's economic health depends. Yet his somewhat heavy-handed rule has infuriated and alienated Bolivia's students, who occasionally take to the streets in rock-tossing protests against his regime. In Argentina, General Ongania has escaped severe criticism because his military regime's Draconian measures have managed to arrest the country's economic decline, bringing a collective sigh of relief from Argentinians. But pressures may well mount if he persists in his intention to keep the country under military rule for at least ten years. Peruvian Strongman Velasco has so far won wide popular support by expropriating some American oil interests that Peruvian leftists long have considered to be a prime symbol of Yanqui economic imperialism.

In those parts of South America still untouched by the takeover trend, civilian statesmen are understandably eying their own military establishments for any signs of a desire to run the country themselves. In Chile, far-leftists, who made a strong showing in the presidential election last time, incite fears of a coup. They may do even better in the 1970 presidential balloting. As a result, there are rumors that the Chilean military is receiving advice from brother officers in neighboring countries to seize on the Communist threat as an excuse to take power. Such reports may be groundless, but they reflect the concern in South America that democratic governments, whatever their shortcomings, are more threatened today by their protectors than by their enemies, as they attempt to wrestle with their social and economic problems in an era of turbulence and change.

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