Word: catt
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With the practiced ease of old troupers, the Perónista majority in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies ran through the routine of ejecting another Radical member last week. For the fourth time in 18 months the pretext was the same: in a speech last month Deputy Atilio E. Cattáneo had been guilty of the "gross misconduct" of criticizing President Juan Domingo...
Shorn of his parliamentary immunity, Cattáneo was immediately subject to arrest on the new criminal charge of "disrespect" to the President. Two former Radical deputies, Ernesto Sammartino and Agustín Rodríguez Araya, previously ejected from the Chamber, had set him an example by fleeing to Uruguay (TIME, Oct. 10). While police searched 64 public establishments and private homes (including those of two high-ranking army officers), Cattáneo gave them the slip in the middle of a downtown Buenos Aires traffic jam. At week's end he, too, apparently was safe in Montevideo...
Soon after he disappeared, Cattáneo presented to the Congress, by mail, support of his charges that Perón had grown rich in office. Listing the names and addresses of business firms which he said could confirm his statements, he described the President's San Vicente country estate (which Perón calls a modest rural retreat) as a lavishly decorated multimillion-peso layout with a large swimming pool, elaborate lighting and watering systems, sumptuous furnishings and marble fireplaces. Cattáneo's charges and his offer of proof made scarcely a ripple...
...that speech, delivered in Jujuy last month, Radical Deputy Atilio Cattáneo had waxed sarcastic about the wealth which leading Peronistas now display-including President Perón's quinta at San Vicente, reputedly worth $300,000. A fortnight later Perón denounced the deputy's charges, prompting Prensa and Nación, which had not published the original speech, to print short resumes of it along with the President's reply. Roused by this action, Perón last week called his cabinet, the entire foreign correspondents' corps and some 50 local newsmen...
What did all this prove? Perón made no effort to disprove Deputy Cattaneo's general contention that Peronistas were getting rich in office, and he did not list his own present wealth-or his wife's. But in attacking Cattáneo and the newspapers, Perón left little doubt that his final aim was to smash the last two citadels of a free press in Argentina and rid himself of every last vestige of opposition...