THE HEMISPHERE: Rumbles

In Bogotá last week a sewer explosion sent Colombians to their knees in supplication. They thought it was The Bomb. Almost everywhere else in the hemisphere, the rumble of politics and the rattle of poker chips drowned out Bikini’s blast. Democrats shouted, and dictators swung their whips. Strong men gambled for high stakes and played penny ante on the side.

This week the rumble of rumbles came from tiny Uruguay, where pro-Argentine nationalists had long been making revolutionary faces. The Uruguayan Government merely announced that police and military plotters had been caught and arrested. Juan Domingo Perón, sitting 120 miles across the estuary in Buenos Aires, could probably fill in the rest of the story.