PERU: Poet President

In his first seven days as Peru's President, José Luis Bustamante Rivero* restored press freedom and full civil rights to his countrymen, freed Peru's political prisoners. He had also fired 300 of the old regime's strong-arm men, cancelled gambling licenses and taken a good long look at the expenditures of the national treasury.

In turning out the tight little oligarchy that had run the country for decades, Peruvians had swung left. But President Bustamante ("a short, careful step is better than a brilliant, audacious hop") was a moderate. Even Lima's El Comercio, organ of the powerful reactionary Miró Quesada family,...

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