Argentine Vice-president Assures Jewish Delegation; Condemns Bias

Vice-President Carlos Humberto Paerette received today a delegation of the DAIA, the central representative body of Argentine Jews, and reiterated to the delegation his Government’s “invariable position in defense of human rights. ” Similar assurances were given yesterday by Interior Undersecretary Jose Luis Vesco to a DAIA delegation which called on him in connection with new anti-Jewish propaganda in Argentina.

The Vice-President told the delegation that the Argentine Government condemned “any discrimination based on race or religion and any totalitarianism and dictatorship.”

In a related development, La Razon, the largest circulation Argentine daily newspaper, reported on an interview with a high official in charge of an investigation into the continuing activities of the Tacuara, the banned anti-Semitic, ultra-nationalistic youth organization. The official, whose name was withheld, was asked about the disappearance of Joe Baxter and five Tacuara companions when police began questioning Tacuara members in connection with a series of bank robberies staged to replenish Tacuara coffers.

The official was quoted as replying that “I don’t know but we may admit there exists a series of ‘imponderables’ in the situation. ” La Razon, commenting on the “imponderables, ” said that the Tacuara had “great means” at its disposal, including the use of airplanes due to the “collaboration certain people give them.”

The newspaper charged that members of Tacuara “enjoyed protection” and added that in several cases involving attacks on Jewish youth–including such outrages as branding swastikas on the faces of victims–the cases were never cleared up “and the authors of the attacks continued enjoying immunity. ” La Razon said that protection for such acts came from those “who should have repressed such things.”