Power Struggle in Argentina

...replied the man who immigrated 40 years ago from Italy at age 12, "I've never applied for citizenship...

...Opus Dei is reportedly buying into communications media here and organizing various opinion-making activities...

...he traces his ouster by the military to that policy, as can Peru's Prado, Ecuador's Velasco Ibarra and Boliva's Paz Estenssoro...

...This means free enterprise, un-tampered markets, de-emphasized planning, foreign investment, Latin American economic integration, a non-political labor force, and an electoral process with a limited franchise a la Brazil...

...South American liberators are the worst enemies of Liberty...

...They feel some inflation is necessary for economic development, favor some state enterprises, and prefer a political system patterned after Franco's Spain or a corporate state...

...Both groups consist largely of conservatives, joiners, "elitists," and intellectuals who have occupied non-elective official posts...

...Already smarting under a wage freeze (with no price controls) and political ban, labor might balk at the austerity program and try a general strike or go underground...

...Economics Minister Adalbert Krieger Vasena is not a member, but he and his staff appear in complete agreement with Institute theory and practice...

...An Argentine thinks of three things in this order: myself, my family and my God" was the way one Argentine writer put it...

...The model for a great American is not Napoleon, but Washington, who represents not military virtues but prosperity, organization and peace...

...The National Security and National Development councils, formed by the military and dominated by hardliners, want to make policy and have civilians administer it...

...In 1945 Peron launched his destructive social revolution, which dignified the poor but backrupted the economy...

...Such intermediate concepts as 'development-ism' [deficit financing] lead to collectivism...

...Neo-Nazi Tacuara youths broke up the play, and a policeman was killed in the ensuing scuffle...

...This problem came up in a casual conversation I happened to witness recently...

...We want a dialogue with all Argentines so a national consensus can be reached among all social groups," Dr...

...A kind of rich man's Tammany Hall, it was formed in 1962 by Mario Amadeo, who supported the 1943 Fascist regime here, then Peron...

...This group is more flexible now," explained one observer who has followed its unpublicized activities closely...

...It has brought such an unlikely combination as Ateneo and Frondizi around to talking alike...

...Such ideas led to the 1853 Constitution still in existence but filed away, that produced decades of prosperity and progress...

...Several days later, political extremists clashed at a local experimental theater where a Leftist group shouted political protests and obscenities from the stage in five languages...

...Argentina's military men, who have dominated this meat and wheat country either on or off stage since 1930, are also involved in the split...

...Now Argentine Ambassador to the United States, where he enjoys the best international banking contacts, Alsogaray enlisted 232 leaders in 1965 who favored a liberal (19th century) economic philosophy with the same enthusiasm that they fought Communism...

...the Institute is strongest among those who control economic policy...

...He repeated the charge at the police station before being released...

...He helped industrialists with high tariffs, then destroyed their associations...

...The two most significant resignations in the economic field were those of Isidor Marin, secretary of the National Development Council, and Ismael Alacacer Mac-kinlay, the subsecretary for Industry...

...Both power struggles are headed for a showdown later this year when the results of current economic policy begin to come in...

...The group identifies itself with Wilhelm Ropke, a German economist who founded the Mont Pelerin group in Switzerland that included Germany's Ludwig Erhard among 50 leading European philosophers, sociologists and economists...

...Another writer traced the problem to the failure of the nation's few great leaders to produce heirs...

...Krieger Vasena has balked at this, asserting that he will make and execute economic policy...

...Radical party President Hipo-lito Irigoyen, who remains a popular symbol, pushed mild social reforms that stirred the majority poor but did little for them...

...He was referring to Juan Bautista Alberti, Domingo F. Sarmiento, and perhaps one or two others...

...So-called "hardliners" generally side with Ateneo against Krieger Vasena's classical economic approach...

...Maximo Etche-copar, Ateneo president and head of the government's Diplomatic College, explained recently when inaugurating a new series of lectures and conferences on public policy...

...The world's eighth largest nation, with all its vast resources, has not yet transformed itself into a modern nation-state...

...One of the majority Italians here (31.2 per cent of the population is of Italian descent, 29.9 per cent of Spanish) was talking like an Argentine nationalist...

...In 1945, a poll showed that the "moderate left" consisted of 28.7 per cent of the semi-skilled and 17.2 per cent of the skilled workers, 20.8 per cent of the peons, and 10.5 per cent of the employes...

...Perhaps it was Stevenson's influence that moved Amadeo, who figured in last year's military takeover and became Ambassador to Brazil, to modify his group's anti-U.S...

...As hardliners, both had been long-time opponents of the Economics Minister...

...They are more interested in national than Latin American economic integration to propel Argentina toward its proclaimed destiny of greatness and Continental hegemony...

...The ideological conflict between the two elite groups is related and similar to that between the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin American and the International Monetary Fund: state planning and soft currency vs...

...Ateneo, reflecting the Catholic Right, is basically Spanish with many members tracing their aristocratic ancestry to colonial land grants and hiding their Axis sympathies in World War II...

...Then the military restored the landowning oligarchy...

...The announcement of a new oil law he sponsored, which will allow concessions to foreign firms and hopefully increase the influx of much-needed private capital, resulted in a Cabinet shake-up early in June...

...The paucity of ideas and leaders since Sarmiento perhaps explains Argentina's fractured society and stunted development...

...He was Foreign Minister under President Eduardo Lonardi, and under President Arturo Frondizi he served as Ambassador to the United States, where he somehow became friendly with Adlai Stevenson...

...Apparently, this stresses that the free play of supply and demand forces in the market place is best for the general welfare...

...While this appears to be more name-dropping than identification, it does indicate goals...

...Peron and his wife, Eva, whipped these elements into the street demonstrators that characterized his regime...

...Successful businessmen, industrialists, and bankers dominate the Institute, which also boasts the membership of Defense Minister Antonio Lanusse and Brigadier Fed-erico Alsogaray, brother of the Ambassador and of Army Commanding General Julio Alsogaray...

...I don't know...

...At a May Day mass here a young Leftist grabbed Cardinal Caggiano's microphone and shouted "liberation or death" while others scattered leaflets about the ornate cathedral...

...While Argentina has produced great cultural works, it has not yet been able to form a cohesive national society or culture...

...The topic is one that Ateneo members can discuss with authority, since they include Foreign Minister Nicanor Costa Mendez, Interior Minister Guillermo Borda, five secretaries or sub-secretaries in ministries, a top executive and numerous ambassadors...

...Ateneo has grown from 46 founders to the present 162 members...

...But this needs at least two years for a fair test, and the present power structure is not apt to permit a popular choice that might upset the status quo...

...It reached the "take-off" stage of economic development in 1935, but it now suffers from economic stagnation...

...All this puts Argentina back where it was when Colonel Juan Peron came along...

...Henry Lee, a free-lance journalist, writes on Latin American affairs for the Baltimore Sun, Business Abroad and other publications...

...The same poll found 55.5 per cent of the capitalists (excluding small shopkeepers) to be ultra-conservative, and 31.4 per cent conservative...

...It's lower and middle classes are mainly of Italian extraction and think in the liberal Italian tradition...

...The gang leader, as usual, was released from custody in less than a week...

...Orisis Villegas, Security Council secretary, wants to dump him...

...When the General Labor Confederation (cgt) invited constitutional ex-Presidents to a May Day ceremony, it was banned as political...

...He manipulated long-existing geographical and social divisions, uniting these diverse groups at times by nationalist and anti-imperialist slogans and symbols...

...A recent poll showed 40 per cent of the people still favoring some form of Peronism...

...He ruined landowners by forcing them to sell to the government and reselling their products at higher prices to finance income redistribution...

...These civilian factions, each having its own economic and political philosophies, are billed as discussion groups and cut through the existing power structure: the military, the Catholic Church and business...

...Until now labor has been unusually calm...

...In his book, Facundo, Sarmiento (President from 1868-1874) enjoined Argentina to discard the "gaucho" mentality and the personalism ("caudilloism") which it bred...

...And such an internal struggle could become further complicated if labor decides that it provides the right moment for a showdown with the government...

...Ateneo and the councils would probably then attempt to extend their roles to economic policy by insisting on the ouster of the Economics Minister...

...At the moment Krieger Vasena's position seems to be stronger than ever...

...With all parties banned, the Argentine political scene????apart from the extremists????has been taken over by two divergent forces inside Lieutenant General Juan Carlos On-gania's government, the Ateneo Forum de la Republica (Athenian Forum of the Republic) and the Instituto de la Economica Social de Mercado (Institute of Market Social Economics...

...Foreign capital will be needed: attract it," Alberti wrote when Buenos Aires and the provinces were gripped in persisting civil war during the years after independence in 1816...

...This debate over national development methods is politically charged...

...Tell me," he was asked by another who apparently also felt the urge to be a real Argentine, "how do you become an Argentine citizen...

...market economics and hard currency...

...Some hours earlier, ex-President Arturo Illia was hauled to a police station for publicly comparing his ouster in June 1966 to a bank robbery...

...Its upper-class elite or oligarchy, from which Ateneo is derived and, to a lesser extent, Al-sogaray's Institute, is basically Spanish and thinks in terms of Spanish conservative philosophy...

...nationalism and statist economics...

...Ongania, fearing the several politically ambitious generals waiting in the wings for a turn at the Presidency, might go along with this shuffle...

...Although Ateneo's role appears similar to that of the Vatican-based Opus Dei in Spain, which seeks worldwide associations, no formal link is known to exist...

...As secret policemen hauled away the former priesthood student, he ranted against the "Ongania-Krieger Vasena-Alsogaray government" and begged to be spared from neo-Nazi toughs waiting outside...

...Ateneo has its greatest strength among those holding key political positions...

...They [the military] just surrounded the Presidential Palace with guns and took over," he stated...

...If, on the other hand, Krieger Vasena's policy boosts the stagnant economy soon enough and he reaches an accord with labor, then the government would eventually have to call for some sort of elections...

...Both remain loyal to Peron ("Peronism without Peron"), whose magic still inhibits Argentina from his Madrid exile...

...But the government's tough line has apparently united Peronist factions under Augusto Vandor and Jose Alonso...

...However, if Krieger Vasena's drive against inflation and the inefficient industry it produces causes a recession later this year, as some expect, a serious political crisis could develop...

...Lieutenant General Julio Alsogaray, along with other "softliners" in the military, supports Krieger Vasena...

...It is important and just to proclaim that Europe's liberal restoration was intelligently prepared by an elite of intellectuals," an Institute pamphlet asserts...

...After Peron was overthrown in 1955, several serious commentators began probing the nation's ills????its lack of consensus and purpose...

...If the interpretation is correct, the concept is hardly newer than Adam Smith...

...We enter today the age of common sense...

...The age of heroes has passed...

...One common denominator was found in the persisting turmoil and military "golpes": the lack of any "sense of community...

...Thus representative democracy appears unlikely, since the elite, though fighting for power among themselves, agree that government is for businessmen, professionals and generals????but not for workers...

...The two are now jockeying for top position in the government, while the government itself is preoccupied with trying to progressively dilute Peronist-dominated labor's influence...

...The resulting terror and repression could become progressively worse...

...Rule of conservative Spanish landowners had been broken by successive waves of immigrants, mostly Italians, who shaped the middle-class Radical party governing from 1916-1930...

...Frondizi has unpleasant memories of the Fund's insistence on monetary stabilization...

...Instead of just being anti-Communist," Fernando Meijide, who now heads the Institute, explained recently, "it is necessary to create a new concept...

...Major Genera...

...CGT proved a natural power base for Peron's demagogy...

...But Ateneo members are rather vague about the nature of their activities...

...It is necessary to confront Communism with a new force: market social economics...

...The Institute of Market Social Economics, founded by Alvaro Carlos Alsogaray, concentrates on influencing economic policy and does this well...