Argentine Police Chief Says Tacuara Movement is Not Anti-semitic

Captain Enrique Horacio Green, the retired naval captain who heads the Argentine Federal police, today completely exonerated the Tacuara movement of anti-Semitism, although many newspapers and public personalities in Argentina have maintained that Tacuara leaders themselves acknowledge their anti-Semitism.

“There is en evidence to implicate the Tacuara group in any anti-Semitic event,” Captain Green maintained during a press interview here. Asked about the published report of Tacuara anti-Semitism, he said he held his opinion despite the fact that others, who have freedom of expression, accuse Tacuara of admitted anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitic manifestations in Argentina, he insisted, have been “exaggerated” and exploited “by Communists who try to prove that there is racial persecution in this country.” Racism, he said, exists in Argentina “on a very small scale” and is being practiced “by a small minority.”

The police chief declared that the execution of Adolf Eichmann in Israel caused reactions “among some people here, moved deeply by purely nationalistic sentiments.” The “pride” of such people was hurt, he held, resulting “in a few anti-Semitic incidents.” But Tacuara had nothing to do with such incidents, although “some” of its members “may or may not have participated,” the police head said.

Shortly before the police chief made his statement, the operators of the Independents Theater in downtown Buenos Aires appealed for police protection against “Nazi hit and run gangs.” The appeal said the theater had been attacked five times recently. At the most recent attack, which took place on August 27, three young gunmen wounded two actors. Police seized the three youths in the first arrest since the recent spurt of anti-Semitic incidents began last spring.

TACUARA LEADER SAYS GROUP IS DEFINITELY ANTI-JEWISH

Alberto Ezcurra, leader of the youth section of the Tacuara movement, indicated today that he disagreed with the police chief’s view that the Tacuara was not anti-Semitic. He said that the Tacuara backs fully the anti-Jewish views expressed by Father Julio Meivielle, a Jesuit whom the Tacuara considers its spokesman on the Jewish question.

The Argentine Jesuit priest has written a violently anti-Semitic book “The Jew–A Mystery of History.” The book was published in 1959 and is now in its third edition. It has also been issued abroad. While some Catholics consider Father Meivielle merely a fanatic, a prominent Latin American Catholic educator–Father Mario Pinto, professor at the Catholic University of San Salvador–who is currently visiting Buenos Aires, said that his views “reflect the doctrinal position of the Catholic Church on the Jewish problem.”

“He is hardly a fanatic,” Father pinto said today. “He has dedicated his life to philosophical studies and correctly reflects the Church’s doctrinal position on the Jewish problem. What he says about the Jews in Argentina is only the application of a general thesis.”