On Further Examination . . .

Editor Carlos Lacerda, boss of Rio's sprightly afternoon Tribuna da Imprensa, dearly loves a newsbeat. This week he had a good one. His Tribuna reported that Argentina's President Peron had jailed the man he hailed last March as the discoverer of a new "Argentine" way of liberating atomic energy (TIME, April 2).

Tribuna's report, datelined Buenos Aires, said that Dr. Ronald Richter, the former Austrian scientist, was arrested after technical experts of the Argentine army had discovered that Richter "was not sufficiently advanced as a physicist" to achieve the atomic release Peron had claimed. Three experts informed Peron that Richter, in their opinion, was nothing more than a "colossal bluff."

"Furious, Peron ordered Dr. Richter arrested," reported Tribuna. "But he has not publicly announced the action, nor is it likely that he will. News of the arrest is being guarded in deepest secrecy by the few persons close to Peron . . . This time Senor Peron is not in the same hurry to call in news correspondents as he was when he announced the sensational discovery of an Argentine thermal nuclear process for the liberation of atomic energy."

The Rio newspaper recalled Peron's words at the time: "Politicians and newspapers of other countries lie intentionally. I never tell a lie." It also quoted Peron's assertion that the "discovery" would pave Argentina's way to world leadership and to command of a "third-force" position in world affairs.

In a column of comment on the story, Editor Lacerda wrote: "On the day on which Peron announced the discovery of this scientist, we stated we thought he was lying, but we never thought Peron himself was being fooled. General Peron, it turns out, was the otario [sucker] . . . Thus closes in international ridicule a chapter which Charlie Chaplin could well have used in his satire, 'The Great Dictator.' "

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