Latin America

ON THE WORLD TODAY

IN THE harshest state paper it has ever issued against the government of an American republic, our State Department devoted 131 pages of an official Blue Book to proving that Perón-controlled regimes in Argentina, Perón’s close associates, and Perón himself were active partners of the Axis throughout the war.

Argentina has had three governments since Pearl Harbor — one under President Ramon S. Castillo (the last constitutional executive ), one under General Pedro P. Ramírez, and one under General Edelmiro Farrell — in which Colonel Juan D. Perón, as Vice President, has been the power behind the throne. The Blue Book charges that all three governments openly assured Germany of their hopes that the Axis would win the war.

They also tried to arrange with the Germans for importations of arms with which South American countries collaborating with the Allies could be attacked. They plotted with the Nazis to set up a front of proAxis states in South America by overthrowing the governments of Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay in a series of Argentine-concocted palace revolutions.

Even after Hemisphere opinion had forced them to break relations with the Axis, and eventually to declare war on it, they carried out assurances freely given to the Germans that it would be made as easy as possible for Nazi business and Nazi undercover activities to continue functioning in Argentina. From Argentine bases, they are still helping refugee NaziFascist interests to build up a strategic foothold in South America.

With this help from the Peron-dominated governments, the Blue Book states, “Nazi forces carried on in the Americas an attack against the Allies as dangerous as a Nazi advance on the battlefields.” Colonel Perón himself is described by the Blue Book as directly taking part in the intrigues to subvert the governments of other South American nations, and as participating in the arrangements for smoothing the path of Nazi economic and espionage activities in Argentina.

The Blue Book is no mere bill of suspicions. Its accusations are based on Nazi documents captured in Germany, and on testimony by participants in Nazi-Argentine intrigues who are now in Allied hands. On the side, diplomatic representatives of other Latin American governments, who might remain unconvinced by the condensed evidence presented in the Blue Book, were informed that they might look at the original documents — tons of documents, not all of them digested yet.

Diplomatic blockbuster

With this ammunition, the Blue Book rocked Perón’s presidential campaign in its final stages. Political notables counted on for last-minute declarations in favor of the candidate failed to show up for declaration ceremonies. There was a noticeable falling off in the zeal and the public appearances of congressional and other minor candidates — never strong rooters on the Peron band wagon. Even some of the stooge leaders of the Peron-organized official labor unions showed signs of retreating from a shaken political front.

Apparently, too, the publication of the Blue Book exercised some compulsions over Perón in the conduct of the election itself. A candidate under such charges could hardly turn loose his fascist street mobs and his strong-arm squads of national police to beat up opposition voters on the way to the ballot boxes. A quarter of a million soldiers and sailors of the Argentine armed forces stood guard at the polls to see that no open intimidation of voters was practiced.

The Blue Book was issued under the known sponsorship of Spruille Braden, Assistant Secretary of State in charge of American Republic Affairs and, last spring and summer, United States Ambassador to Argentina, who dared to carry directly to the Argentine people the case against Perón’s fascism. Peron promptly labeled the Blue Book a tissue of Braden lies procured by Braden bribes and coercions, and proclaimed his campaign a war of “Perón against Braden.”

Secretary of State Byrnes’s statement that the Blue Book was an official declaration of the United States government, approved by President Truman and himself, failed to make even a dent in Perón’s brass and assurance. The fascist campaign ended, characteristically enough, in a roar of outraged Argentine nationalism. Even in printing the election returns, Perón’s principal Buenos Aires newspaper, La Epoca, listed the tabulations under the headings of “Perón” and “Braden.”

Can Argentina belong?

But the Blue Book was not published primarily for its effect on the Argentine election. Its real objective was to counter the effects of a Perón victory on the other Latin American governments, especially with regard to the negotiations for the military mutual assistance treaty.

A conference of the Foreign Ministers of the American republics has been called for this spring to draft a peace and security treaty for the Western Hemisphere. The proposed treaty, among other things, will bind the republics to use their joint armed forces to put down aggressions within the American continents, and under certain circumstances to deal forcibly with threats of aggression.

To this extent, the treaty — actually intended as a permanent form for the wartime security agreement made by the republics at Mexico City last year under the name of the Act of Chapultepec — will have many of the characteristics of a military alliance between the American governments.

Now the United States raises this question in the Blue Book: Can a government with the Argentine regime’s fascist record and probable future direction safely be trusted with the security plans and military secrets which necessarily must be shared by a group of governments pledged to the joint defense of the Western Hemisphere? As far back as October the United States made it clear that our government is opposed to signing a mutual military assistance treaty with the other American governments if the Argentine regime is to be a party to it.

The Blue Book is simply Washington’s method of dramatizing the seriousness of the issue. It concludes with the statement that Washington looks forward to receiving from the other American states the benefit of their views.

Neighbors on the fence

The issue of excluding Argentina as a Hemisphere security treaty partner has divided the American republics more sharply than any other disagreement since the “Good Neighbor” honeymoon began. All sorts of domestic political considerations and not a few psychological traits have played a part in aligning the views of the Latin American statesmen. Certainly before publication of the Blue Book, the United States would have found it difficult to line up even a bare majority for shutting Argentina out.

Argentina’s nearest neighbors, Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay, either have been too much under Argentine influence, or have been too fearful of the possibilities of trouble with the growing military establishment, to risk a stand for exclusion.

In Brazil, strong political elements close to the ousted dictator, Getulio Vargas, are peeved at the United States for allegedly conniving at Vargas’s downfall, and see no reason why Washington should have its way with a neighbor dictator.

Other republics, which are traditionally conscious of the dangers of United States intervention in their internal politics, have rated the censure of the Perón regime as potentially a form of intervention. Still other Latin American statesmen, yearning for relaxation from war tensions, prefer to consider the Argentine problem merely transitory. They have taken the position that if Argentina is treated kindly and admitted as an equal in the security treaty formalities, it will shortly relapse into a merely conventional caudillo dictatorship.

The State Department hoped to break the log jam. But before committing themselves finally on the issue of excluding Argentina from the security treaty, cagey Latin American governments were content to wait until the last Argentine ballot had been counted — or miscounted.

Unquestionably, in Latin American countries the Blue Book had the biggest press splurge in the history of inter-American state papers; but in spite of its reception, Washington could not be assured of the answer to the main question. The State Department, however, proposed to go through with the Rio conference, and to go there determined on a showdown.

All that is certain is that the question of fascism in Argentina still dominates inter-American relations. Until that is settled, no Hemisphere security treaty can be framed, and no one can be sure that the interAmerican system will survive.