Evening star., 1941-09-14

contain mail" that is, letters. The
second mistake was to ADOPT a tone of
arrogance in the notes he addressed to
the Foreign Minister. If there is any,
thing that rubs the Latins the wrong
way it is to be barked at. So delicate
Is this point and so frazzled were the
nerves that La Prensa, perhaps the
worlds most careful paper when it comes
to dignity of expression and olympic
restraint, let go broadside rejecting
the temper of the moment. The Foreign
Office, when transmitting to the COM
mittee the text of one of the German
notes, did not include the phrase, II have
the honor to convey to Your Excellency
the expression of my highest considera-
ton" which is customary diplomatic
double-talk. The committee sent a note
to the Foreign Minister saying "a grave
situation had arisen from the German
"diScourtesy." La PrenSa took the For
eign Office severely to task for this omiS-
sion-and this is as significant as if the
United States Supreme Court officially
chided the Secretary Of State.
Anger of Public.
DR.. Ruiz Guinazu, the Foreign Min
lister, tried to keep the affair within dis
Greet bounds and the uproar covered by
Soundproof mats. But the Argentine
public felt so outraged by this time that
the cabinet members action served only
to make things worse. The rift between
the administration and Congress ap-
peared wider, even though the Minister
of the Interior had decreed the banning
of the Nationalist Youth"
One of Argentina's outstanding Con-
gresSmen, DR.. America Ghioldi. who
visited this country last year, told the
writer: Whatever conclusions the In
yeStlgating Committee of the Chamber
OF Deputies arrives at, the truth is that
it has done the country a signal service
in applying timely fumigation to the
conSpirators' lairs. The committee has
been willing to do what the executive
has refused to do" Referring to the
Roosevelt-Churchill declaration, he
called it "the octologue of the struggle
for civilization"
The Spec Incident.
The funny part of all this is that the
NaZis have been hoisted by their own
petard. If they had only kept their
mouths closed and behaved with ele-
mentary respect for the country where
they were living, they would not have
had a very hard job avoiding new en-
mites. The South Americans are senti-
mental people and they are easily moved
by gestures. When the Admiral Graf
Spec was blown up in the River Plata, of
Montevideo, after losing her fight against
the three British cruisers of Commodore
Harwood, the Germans prestige sank to
the bottom. But when the Specs COM
mander, Capt. Hans Langsdorff, killed
himself in his room at the Buenos Aires
Navy Yard, his action touched the South
Americans deeply. His funeral was the
greatest thing of its kind ever seen in
the Argentine capital, and the drama
was brought to a climax by the chival-
rous action of several British merchant
ship captains who had been Capt. Langs-
dorff's prisoners on the Spec and who
came from Montevideo to pay homage to
him.
When the Britishers delivered their
flowers and said, "he was loyal enemy
an officer and a gentlemen" there were
tears In every ones eyes A rudimentary
sense of the dramatic should have taught
the Nazi Embassy to exploit this episode.
But hardly had Capt. Langsdorf been
buried when Baron Won Thermann began
plotting ways to have the Specs men
escape from their internment. There
followed his easily detected skulduggery
in Misiones, and now this serio-comic
affair of the radio transmitter, which
has served to lift the lid of Argentine
indignation and definitely ruin Nazi
propaganda in South America.