A Turn from the Left?

A tight cordon of tanks and armored trucks circled slowly around Guatemala City's "Stadium of the Revolution." Inside, under a blazing sun, 50,000 Guatemalans applauded a ceremony all but unprecedented in the little republic's turbulent history--the peaceful and constitutional transmission of power from one President to another.

The retiring President was Juan Jose Arevalo, who, after the 1944 revolution, had been called to the post from Argentine exile, had confounded the prophets by surviving 28 revolutionary plots and serving out his full six-year term. His successor: Colonel Jacobo Arbenz, 37, son of a Swiss pharmacist, onetime Defense Minister under Arevalo.

Under "Spiritual Socialist" Arevalo, who seems to believe that he has led his people through the same kind of revolution as Mexico's, Guatemala became the hemisphere's most left-wing country. In their zeal to proclaim their independence of the U.S., Arevalo's followers fell under the influence of anti-yanqui propaganda put out by local Communists, and accepted Red leadership in their trade unions. Arevalo gave all moral and material aid he could to the Caribbean Legion's attempts to overthrow rightist dictatorships in Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

Arevalo's successor is anything but an idealist and dreamer. Colonel Arbenz is a soldier, whose road to the presidency was suddenly cleared one day in July 1949 when the popular favorite for the succession, Army Boss Francisco Arana, was cut down by assassins' bullets. In his first speech, after donning the blue & white sash of office last week, he was guarded and noncommittal. His new cabinet reflected the left-center coalition that had elected him. As his foreign minister he picked a left-winger, but he also assigned an important place as minister without portfolio to a leading antiCommunist.

The U.S. State Department hopes that Guatemala, under President Arbenz, will turn from Arevalo's leftist path. A property-holder as well as a militarist, he has repeatedly told fellow planters: "Don't worry, I'm not going to share my coffee fincas with anybody."

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