Argentina: Frondizi's Odds

One of the most sacrosanct of Latin American sacred cows is state control of production and processing of such fundamental resources as petroleum. Last week Argentina's President Arturo Frondizi,who is not bullied by sacred cows, took pen in hand and signed a $90 million deal whereby two U.S. companies and one British firm will build Argentina's first petrochemical plants to produce synthetic rubber and industrial chemicals. In many Latin lands, such action would have brought out the mobs to smash windows and shout "Yankee, no!" In Argentina, conditioned by three years of watching Frondizi leap from crisis to crisis...

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