Word: magsaysay
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Doubt. The Philippine government warily called in a handwriting expert to examine the signature. The expert, matching it with a five-year-old Taruc signature, pronounced it phony. But Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay, boss of the government's fight against the Huks, was not so sure. Once before, the Free Press had carried a letter from Huk Leader William Pomeroy, former American G.I. who is now a captive in Manila. It had proved to be genuine. In recent months, Taruc had shown signs of wanting to talk peace with Magsaysay...
...Magsaysay dashed off a reply for the pages of the Free Press. "Come down and let us talk things over," he urged. "There will be no double dealing." Then Manila sat back to wait for word from Luis Taruc...
Last January, Magsaysay for the first time became aware of his high-living security agent, and promptly asked for his resignation. Army General Colixto Duque just as promptly reinstated Pedro. The Defense Secretary called the general on the carpet. Words flew hot and fast. "Anybody who can cause a rift between the general and me," said Magsaysay at last, "is a very dangerous person." And with that, he fired Pedro out of hand...
Fancies & Facts. Officers and officials high & low indignantly assured Magsaysay that Pedro was "a good man." Some threatened to resign, themselves, but the Defense Secretary held his ground. Then, last month, the U.S. Communist agitator William Pomeroy was captured (TIME, April 21). Among his papers, announced Magsaysay last week, were some interesting notes about De la Pena: Pedro was a secret Communist agent in the service of the Huks and Red China...
Pedro took to his heels and a fortnight later, disguised in women's clothes, was picked up in the captain's cabin of a ship outward-bound for Borneo. He was just fitting a woman's wig to his head when two of Magsaysay's men arrested him. From the papers tucked in his clothes, the agents who captured him soon gleaned even more information: Pedro was not only a Communist spy, he had apparently been marked down for liquidation by the Communists themselves for withholding funds. And where had the funds come from? They...