The Free and the Enterprising
JAMES, DANIEL
The Free and the Enterprising By Daniel James An Argentine businessman mistakenly believed Peron Raul Lamuraglia is a man of considerable spiritual as well as material substance. A "textile...
...He practically led the opposition to the dictator's economic policies, as a result of which he suffered harassment...
...If they are to send only favorable items about Peron, then their function becomes virtually that of propagandists??hardly a credit to a free press...
...Peron soon began to enact totalitarian economic measures, and, in an attempt to save themselves and their enterprises, many businessmen went along...
...dollars to bolster an economy that Peron has plundered in order to feed his totalitarian machine...
...It was part of his internal policy of convivencia (civil peace)??although a formal "state of internal war" reigns??and his externa] policy of wooing the United States...
...And I wonder, finally, what the Raul Lamuraglias all over Latin America will think of the performance of our free press and free enterprise on Peron's behalf...
...The story said that Raul had been arrested nine days before "on unspecified charges...
...By 1951, Raul Lamuraglia was convinced that it would be healthier to fight Peron from outside...
...The amnesty law contained a special provision clearing Raul Lamuraglia specifically of charges made against him in absentia (of which he had known nothing...
...They had come to "promote trade" ??that is, get U.S...
...Upon my return to New York from South America, I saw Raul once more...
...He is short, slight, greying and always dresses dapper...
...One is this...
...Raul knew well that business cannot be free, in Argentina or anywhere else, unless labor also is free, and although he was a big employer he worked with labor against the common enemy: totalitarianism...
...A few days after Lamuraglia's arrest, there arrived in this country ten Argentine businessmen who were described as a mission "representative of private enterprise" in Argentina...
...The date was April 11...
...Several months ago, Peron passed a new law amnestying political exiles...
...Some people can adjust to exile, but Raul Lamuraglia is the kind for whom separation from the homeland means being cut off from life...
...I wonder if the leaders of this land of free enterprise know the difference between the "free enterprisers" up here beating the drums for Peron and the freedom-loving businessman whom Peron has imprisoned...
...It was typical of the man's catholic outlook and acquaintanceship that we met not through a businessman but through a labor leader...
...He looked none the worse physically for his nearly three years of exile...
...He told me that soon he would be traveling south...
...That event was widely and favorably reported by our press...
...At vacation time, Raul and his wife, who was in exile with him, had to resort to subterfuge to get their children out of Argentina for all too infrequent and brief family reunions...
...He wanted to be near his children and his business, to be part of his country again...
...But I had no inkling??nor, I imagine, did he??of the fate in store for him...
...I wonder if they are aware that Peron, even as he professes "friendship" for us, is campaigning in Latin America to destroy our economic and political influence...
...Why had Raul gone back...
...I met Raul in New York soon after his exile began...
...Not so Raul Lamuraglia...
...Worse yet, perhaps, he had transplanted to America soil the old despotic Asian custom, lately revived by the Soviets, of using a political foe's family as bait to trap him...
...His devotion to Argentina is so profound that, despite his loathing for Peron, he insisted that his two children be educated in Argentina...
...His son, Raul Junior, all of eighteen and just graduated from high school, was imprisoned, too...
...But he was unhappy...
...Nevertheless, he was arrested and put in the penitentiary...
...The New York Times, at this writing, has been the only major U.S...
...publication to take note??and very briefly at that??of the Lamuraglia case...
...I did not see Raul again until last summer, when I was touring South America...
...Next thing I knew, there was this small headline in the New York Times: "Returned Exile Arrested...
...There are two curious footnotes to this tale...
...Do they fear that Peron will close them up as he did a year ago...
...Raul took it at face value...
...The big wire services with correspondents in Buenos Aires have carried nothing...
...Peron had not only violated his own amnesty decree, but also the Bogota Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to both of which Argentina is a signatory...
...A "textile magnate," as the newspapers called him, he was Vice President and then Acting President of the Union Industrial DC Argentina, to which most Argentine businessmen belonged...
...I wonder if they realize that you can no more do business with Peron than you could with Hitler or Stalin...
...That was in 1945...
...And so he left his native land...
...If fear of Peron is to dictate the suppression of newsworthy but unpleasant stories about Argentina, what is the use of having correspondents there...
...The second footnote is ironic...
Vol. 37 • April 1954 • No. 17
