Let Jorge Do It

For more than six months Chile has been the reluctant host to the most prominent and best-heeled band of ex-Dictator Juan Peron's sidekicks anywhere outside an Argentine prison. There was Peron's Chamber of Deputies President Hoctor Campora; Jose Gregorio Espejo, once head of the General Confederation of Labor; John William Cooke, last boss of the Peronista Party; and Pedro Andres Gomiz, former director of the nationalized Argentine oil industry. But it was two others who were most remembered back in Argentina. One was boyishly handsome Guillermo Patricio Kelly, top bullyboy of Peron's street-fighting Alianza greyshirts. The other was Jorge Antonio, biggest moneyman of Peron's regime.

Unlocked Door. The son of a penniless Syrian immigrant, Jorge Antonio parlayed a friendship with Peron's brother-in-law into a personal fortune close to $215 million. After Peron's downfall in 1955, Antonio and his five friends were packed off to a remote jail 170 miles from the continent's mainland tip. A special warden was assigned to foil escape attempts--at a salary of $86 a month. Jorge took care of that. One night last March the special warden unlocked the prison gates and discreetly disappeared; Jorge and friends got into a waiting yellow Ford station wagon, drove into Chile.

As they waited in a Santiago jail for the final decision on their asylum appeal, Antonio's cash quickly eased the rigors of incarceration. The cells were provided with comfortable beds; there was wine aplenty, after-hours dinner parties for their friends, and free use of the penitentiary telephones. Jorge & Co. paid some of Chile's highest-priced lawyers at least $56,000 to fight Argentina's extradition attempts.

What Money Buys. Last week Chile's supreme court granted asylum to him and four of his friends on the ground that the offenses they were charged with were political. But it balked at Greyshirt Kelly, ruled that the charges of murder, robbery and blackmail against Kelly were both well-founded and nonpolitical; Kelly was ordered returned to Argentina.

Jorge got the news at a luxury-lined private hospital where he was being treated for kidney trouble. It seemed to effect a miraculous cure. Jorge leaped out of bed and into his Mercedes-Benz, announced that the first thing he and his friends planned to do was board a plane for Venezuela to pay their respects to their old boss Peron. He regretted Kelly would not be with them. "Kelly's fate," he said, "has saddened us all, and I myself am prepared to do anything for him."

Something was done. Though Kelly's special privileges as a political prisoner were ordered officially canceled, well-wishers streamed in and out of his cell as they always had, with no regard for regular visiting hours. There did seem to be an unusual number of women. But in accord with prison custom, the women were passed without inspection. When the last of them had left, a guard looked in Kelly's cell. Kelly was gone. Behind him he left a telltale box of cosmetics.

Chilean authorities promptly arrested Warden Salvador Mejias, a friendly fellow who was surprised a few months ago sharing a convivial meal with his Peronista prisoners. Watches were set on all roads and airfields, but Argentine officials were not hopeful. Said one gloomily: "Jorge's money can buy anything."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.