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In Brazil, police not only killed Guerrilla Leader Marighella, who three years ago organized the kidnaping of U.S. Ambassador C. Burke Elbrick, but also Marighella's successor, Carlos Lamarca. He had plotted the kidnaping of Swiss Ambassador Giovanni Bucher in 1970. Brazilian terrorists have been quiescent lately, partly because of the grim effectiveness of the country's police and army, partly because most of the guerrillas seem to be young middle-class intellectuals who have little kinship with the masses of uneducated poor they would like to lead. "They just don't know how to get their hands dirty," says one American expert. "If one of these strange-talking kids moved into a favela, the gossip would run through the place like fire. The cops would be on to him in no time."
Last week's guerrilla murders in Argentina were aimed at intimidating the government of President Alejandro Agustín Lanusse. Lanusse, who has called for elections to be held in March 1973, vowed that "nothing and no one will halt the country's return to constitutionality." Lanusse's firm stand in last week's crisis may have strengthened him, even though his refusal to negotiate with the kidnapers led to Sallustro's death. The guerrillas had demanded $1,000,000 and the release of 50 political prisoners in return for the Italian's life.
Socrates' Truth. Sallustro's "execution" by his captors took place in a small house in Buenos Aires. At the end of a 20-minute gun battle between police and guerrillas, a man inside shouted: "Stop firing! We have Sallustro alive." In the ensuing silence, two more shots could be heard. When police rushed in, they found Sallustro dead on the bedroom floor. Three men escaped through a rear exit.
Sallustro obviously knew that he had been condemned to death. In his pocket, police found a note addressed to a colleague in which he recalled that Socrates, before taking the hemlock, had deplored the sobbing of his wife and followers. "He said they were jealous because he would know the truth before others," wrote Sallustro, adding, "I am very calm because I shall finally know the truth of Giorgio [a son who was drowned 13 years ago] and of God."