The World: Homespun Coup

While delegates to the conference of nonaligned countries were winding up their meeting in Lima last week, host Peru did a little realigning of its own. In a swift, bloodless coup, Strongman Juan Velasco Alvarado was ousted, and left the palace freely for his home in the suburb of Chaclacayo. His No. 2 man, Francisco Morales Bermudez, took his place. The change, the new government said rather vaguely, would not only end "personality cults" but would also ensure a "free fatherland."

The visiting delegates may have been surprised—a resplendently uniformed Velasco had addressed them only a few days before at the conference's...

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