Magic in the Pink House

The Pink House in Buenos Aires exerts a powerful influence on its presidential occupants, elected or not. Juan Carlos Ongania, installed after the last civilian government was overthrown in 1966, was ejected last June by his former military comrades for planning a corporate-style state with himself as its permanent head. Ongania's humorless, moody successor, Roberto M. Levingston, succumbed to the same dreams of grandeur; some of his aides even took to calling him "the Emperor." He overestimated his own power and underestimated that of the army chief who had given him the presidency in the first place, Lieut. General Alejandro A. Lanusse. Thus Levingston last week maneuvered himself out of a job.

Importing Beef. In a futile power play, the President sought to remove the army strongman, and with him any threat to Levingston's ambitions. Accordingly, he announced that he was firing Lanusse for failing to preserve civil order--and placing him under arrest. But as the President tried vainly to make the order stick, military units around the country rallied to Lanusse's side. Levingston resigned and Argentina returned to direct military rule, under a junta comprised of Lanusse, Navy Admiral Pedro Gnavi and Air Force Brigadier General Carlos Rey. Lanusse took over the presidency while retaining command of the army, a precaution against future coups. But he and his colleagues also said that they favored a "speedy" return to an elected government, suggesting that it would be earlier than the date four or five years off that Levingston favored.

The timetable may well depend on how well Lanusse, 52, deals with the economic ills that accompany Argentina's political unrest. In the face of mounting inflation, Lanusse repealed a government decree that kept a ceiling of 19% on wage increases. He had little choice; union leaders in riot-plagued Cordoba had promised more violence unless the wage ceiling was abolished.

The dilemma facing Argentina's rulers since the ouster of Dictator Juan Peron in 1955 is that the Peronists, who are chiefly urban workers, remain the most numerous political force in the country. Should Argentina return to entirely free elections soon, the Peronists could well win. Lanusse, who spent four years in prison in Patagonia for his role in an abortive coup against Peron in 1951, is not likely to welcome any return to the old Peronism. A more immediate concern for Argentina is whether the Pink House will once again exert its old magic and persuade Lanusse, as it did his predecessors, to forget about a restoration of civilian rule.

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