On the Right

Buenos Aires, Feb. 1—More people have been executed here by terrorists and counterterrorists in the past couple of years than in France during the Revolution. The killings here are less ritualistic: there is no guillotine, no roll of drums, but the results are as conclusive. Yesterday, a dear young thing, third-year student in psychology at the university, a businessman’s daughter who had ingratiated herself with the local police chief, left a package on his desk which in due course exploded, killing the chief, his assistant, and wounding several others in the area, including an 11-year-old boy.

She would be a so-called Montonero, not to be confused with the ERP. The latter, a tightly organized, military revolutionary group, were attacking police and military installations in force during the last days of Isabellita Perón. They are mostly dead now. The former, though left-ideologists who think of themselves as vaguely Trotskyist, behave rather like the Narodniki in Russia, early in the century, going about killing people, preferably officials of the Argentine government but, failing a nubile target, anybody will do. The best friend of Argentina’s leading sociologist was driving down the road with his seven children. His car was stopped, a stranger leaned into the window, drew a pistol, and killed the father in the sight of his seven children.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

Buenos Aires, Feb. 1—More people have been executed here by terrorists and counterterrorists in the past couple of years than in France during the Revolution. The killings here are less ritualistic: there is no guillotine, no roll of drums, but the results are as conclusive. Yesterday, a dear young thing, third-year student in psychology at the university, a businessman’s daughter who had ingratiated herself with the local police chief, left a package on his desk which in due course exploded, killing the chief, his assistant, and wounding several others in the area, including an 11-year-old boy.

She would be a so-called Montonero, not to be confused with the ERP. The latter, a tightly organized, military revolutionary group, were attacking police and military installations in force during the last days of Isabellita Perón. They are mostly dead now. The former, though left-ideologists who think of themselves as vaguely Trotskyist, behave rather like the Narodniki in Russia, early in the century, going about killing people, preferably officials of the Argentine government but, failing a nubile target, anybody will do. The best friend of Argentina’s leading sociologist was driving down the road with his seven children. His car was stopped, a stranger leaned into the window, drew a pistol, and killed the father in the sight of his seven children.