PLOT AGAINST GEN. PERON

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25610, 27 September 1948, Page 3

PLOT AGAINST GEN. PERON

—♦— CHARGES MADE BY ARGENTINA

NAVY minister resigns (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) BUENOS AIRES. September 25. After the police announcement of a olot to assassinate General Peron and JjS wife. General Peron accepted the resignation of his Navy Minister .Rear-Admiral Fidel Anadon) and appointed Admiral Enrique Garcia, the Jnly full admiral in the Argentine Anadon denied that jus resignation was connected with the plot investigation and emphasised jjj S friendship with the President. Observers link his resignation with the arrest of two Navy chaplains among the 17 persons arrested in connexion with the alleged plot. Meanwhile, the Uruguayan police in Montevideo have posted guards at the residence of Mr John Griffith, who was expelled in April from Argentina, where he was a cultural attache a t the United States Embassy. MrGriffith was alleged in the Argentine Government's announcement of the plot to have been “head of the movement” against General Peron. Mr Griffith told the press in Montevideo that the Argentine charge was a fantastic joke. The Argentine police chief. General Arturo Bertollo. flew to Montevideo last night to confer with the Uruguayan President (Mr Berres). It is officially denied that a request was made for the extradition of Mr Griffith from Uruguay, where he has lived since his expulsion from Argentina. The Buenos Aires police to-night arrested the president of the Labour party (Mr Luis Rojido). General Peron. addressing a wildly cheering crowd from the balcony of Government House, accused Mr Griffith of having led the plot to assassinate him and said that “certain foreign correspondents who are really international spies” had helped in the plot. Eighty persons were injured during demonstrations after General Peron’s speech. t The Buenos Aires newspaper “Epoca” to-day accused the United States of “ordering General Peron’s assassination.”

Police Account of Plot A police statement named Mr Cypriano Reyes, a Labour leader and former Congressman, -who broke with General Peron after the 1946 Presidential election, as the Buenos Aires leader of the plot. The statement said that the group planned to kill General Peron and his wife as they left the Buenos Aires Opera House.

General Bertollo said that the plotters were seeking support in the army and air force, and that detectives posing as officers of both services had pretended to work with the group and uncovered the proof. He added that the aim of the plot was to create enough confusion by the death of General Peron and his wife to permit the Government to be seized.

Soon after the announcement about the plot the General Confederation of Labour called general 12-hour stopwork meetings throughout the nation to permit workers to demonstrate for General Peron. Crowds of workers marched to Government House and shouted “Viva” for General Peron and his wife. All trains and buses were stopped. Long lines of workers paraded today in Buenos Aires with poles and hangmen's ropes after the announcement of the arrests. The poles and ropes symbolised General Peron’s recent speech at Santafe, in which he announced that his. voice would not tremble when he ordered his opponents to be hanged.