REVOLUTION OR STEAKS?

One day not long ago as I was guiding Jorge Luis Borges over a fragmented sidewalk in downtown Buenos Aires, the blind poet turned to me with a characteristic smile and said: “This country is certainly going to the dogs, isn’t it!”

The same observation, in a variety of ways, was made to me by every Argentine I talked to. Services are breaking down. Businesses are failing. Unemployment is rising. Rents are skyrocketing. Strikes seem endemic. Urban terrorists kidnap rich victims with almost as much impunity as the Tupamaros across the river in Uruguay. Nobody has a good word to say about the government of General Alejandro Agustin Lanusse. And even the Perónists, who still make up almost 50 per cent of the voting public, are so divided they can’t decide whether they want their aging hero back from Madrid or would prefer to conduct the “coming revolution” against the “corrupt militarists” with El Lider conveniently abroad where he can serve as either symbol or scapegoat.

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Selden Rodman

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One day not long ago as I was guiding Jorge Luis Borges over a fragmented sidewalk in downtown Buenos Aires, the blind poet turned to me with a characteristic smile and said: “This country is certainly going to the dogs, isn’t it!”

The same observation, in a variety of ways, was made to me by every Argentine I talked to. Services are breaking down. Businesses are failing. Unemployment is rising. Rents are skyrocketing. Strikes seem endemic. Urban terrorists kidnap rich victims with almost as much impunity as the Tupamaros across the river in Uruguay. Nobody has a good word to say about the government of General Alejandro Agustin Lanusse. And even the Perónists, who still make up almost 50 per cent of the voting public, are so divided they can’t decide whether they want their aging hero back from Madrid or would prefer to conduct the “coming revolution” against the “corrupt militarists” with El Lider conveniently abroad where he can serve as either symbol or scapegoat.