Peacemaker at Work

"The Peronista revolution has ended," Juan Peron announced suddenly last week to a caucus of Peronista Congressmen. "Now starts a new stage, constitutional in nature and free from revolutions, because revolution cannot be the permanent situation in a country." Therefore, the Strongman said, he was going to step out of the party and "become the President of all Argentines, friends and enemies." He promised, moreover, to "abolish all restrictions that we have imposed on the country" and give the opposition "all liberties within the law."

"I have come to the conclusion that pacification is what is needed," Peron went on. "When one doesn't want a fight, two can't fight."

Trick or Treat? This was a far cry from Peron's cry of 14 months before: "The Republic has only two parts, revolution and counter-revolution," or from what he said only last May: "The revolution isn't over yet." Yet some Argentines interpreted Peron's words as an implicit commitment to renounce his dictatorial powers, end the four-year-old "state of internal war" and restore Argentina's long-lost freedom of speech, press and assembly. Whether Peron really intends to ease up remains to be seen. But the speech fitted tidily into the policy he has followed steadily since the June 16 bombing revolt: to seem the statesman and play the peacemaker while stalling for time to mend his power. Coming after his opponents had spent a week noisily rejecting his offer of a truce of the week before, charging trickery, his soft retort left them with their fists up and no one to fight.

Forgive & Forget? The Roman Catholic Church continued a cautious calculated policy of taking Peron's word at face value. A pastoral letter last week summed up the story of Peronista persecution of the church but added that these wrongs could be "forgiven and forgotten." Santiago Luis Cardinal Copello voiced disaproval of Catholics who demonstrated in the Plaza de Mayo; to prevent further demonstrations, touring Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans, who was scheduled to say Mass in Buenos Aires' Cathedral, stayed clear out of Argentina.

Over Catholic objections, the government started to rebuild two of the ancient churches burned out the night of June 16. The government repairs and the Catholic protests were explained by the same fact: stark and gutted, the churches were eloquent antigovernment, pro-Catholic symbols.

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