ARGENTINA: Operation Purity

From Buenos Aires, a TIME correspondent cabled a startling prediction: Argentina's forthcoming (Feb. 24) presidential elections, if actually held, might indeed be honest. Reason: the Army, which had publicly and repeatedly pledged itself, with whatever honor and reputation it had left, to guarantee free elections, stood bound to carry out that promise.

In the greystone mansion that houses Argentina's Foreign Ministry, Chief of Staff General Carlos von der Becke last week told assembled foreign ambassadors what the Army planned: an "operation purity," soldiered by a 250,000-man patrol, which would assure electoral honesty...

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