Argentina’s new leader

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 19

Argentina’s new leader

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BUENOS AIRES, March 26. General Alejandro Lanusse, the Army commander who headed the coup which ousted President Roberto Levingston, will be sworn in as Head of State today after a surprise announcement here. The Navy Commander, Admiral Pedro Gnavi and the Air Force Commander, Brigadier Carlos Rey, who helped to overthrow President Levingston four days

ago, were expected to rule the country with General Lanusse. Now they will share only legislative powers with him, an official announcement said yesterday. General Lanusse, the leader of two successful coups within nine months, will also retain command of the Army, a key post in a country where the Army is much more important than the other two services. He will be sworn in at an evening ceremony tomorrow at the Government palace. The Army chief, tall and taciturn, is the third man to rule Argentina South America’s second biggest country with a population of 24m—since the democratic-ally-elected President Arturo Illia was toppled in a military coup five years ago. General Lanusse organised Tuesday’s coup after President Levingston ordered his dismissal for failing to carry out instructions to move against demonstrators in the central Argentine city of Cordoba, where at least two people were killed during rioting two weeks ago. The general, known as a political moderate but a tough commander, spent four years in prison for his part in an abortive coup

against the former strongman, Juan Peron, in September 1951. He was released when the dictator was deposed in September, 1955. Mr Arturo Morroig, the former chairman of the House of Deputies, has been appointed Minister of the Interior in General Lanusse’s cabinet.

The 56-year-old Spanishborn lawyer was elected to the House as a candidate of the People’s Radical Party of the former President, Dr Illia, in 1963. He was chairman of the Lower House when Dr Illia was ousted from office in June, 1966 by a military coup which put President Juan Carlos Ongania in power.

Calley trial The jury in the longest court-martial in United States military history began its tenth day of deliberations today to decide the fate of William Calley the lieutenant charged with the murder of 102 South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai three years ago. The trial entered its fifty-ninth day with no indication of when the verdict may come.—Fort Benning,' Georgia, March 26.