Castillo & Coup

The Argentine Government last week squelched an attempted coup but it could not squelch a suspicion.

One night 34 boxes of aviation munitions disappeared from an air base. Shortly the Government ordered all of its warplanes immobilized, their magnetos removed. Troops at the Parana air base were confined to quarters for twelve hours. Soon new troops took over at Parana and the Government's Aviation School at Cordoba. Aviation munitions were moved from airports to infantry depots and the Military College at El Palomar. Commander of Army Aviation General Angel Maria Zuloaga not only resigned but, the next day, was removed by decree. The Government announced that disaffection among many Argentine flyers would be investigated.

Something about the affair smelled fishy. Handsome, taciturn Acting President Ramon S. Castillo was having trouble with his legislators. Last week he was anxious to get a new budget passed, a proposal loan of $110,000,000 from the U.S. approved. But the Radical majority of the Chamber of Deputies would not hear of it until he assured them that this winter's Buenos Aires provincial elections (for 42 out of 158 Chamber seats) would be held under Federal, not provincial, law. This would put an end to a long-established system of election fraud by which Acting President Castillo's National Democratic (conservative) Party gets victories in overwhelmingly Radical precincts. Ramon Castillo had nothing to say. And, faced with the Radicals' stubbornness, the National Democratic minority bolted the Chamber.

Suddenly news of the attempted coup swept Buenos Aires. Acting President Castillo sharply demanded legislative action. The National Democrats returned to the Chamber and the Radicals began considering and passing budget items.

Some Argentine observers thought they saw connections between the Chamber deadlock and the coup. Radical Deputy Eduardo Teisaire even accused Acting President Castillo himself of having been one of the plotters. One thing at least seemed certain: Acting President Castillo had been in a position where an attempted coup, or any other excuse to adopt a strong-arm policy, could not have been altogether unwelcome.

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