When the Brass Fall Out

It was a defiant show. In his beribboned cavalryman's uniform, General Ricardo Perez Godoy, 59, head of the four-man military junta that took over Peru after inconclusive elections last year, sat stiffly in the ornate Salon Blanco of Lima's presidential palace listening to the complaints of two fellow junta members, Air Force Major General Pedro Vargas Prada and Vice Admiral Francisco Torres Matos. The midnight callers gave him an ultimatum: resign or be driven out. Replied Perez Godoy: "I refuse to leave. It is too late now to continue this conversation. I am going to retire."

His bravado was in vain. Warned that his comrades-in-arms were determined to remove him, Perez Godoy had tried to rally support among provincial military commanders and among civilians working toward new presidential elections in June. All his efforts failed. Just before dawn, Perez Godoy got into a car with his wife Lola and drove off to his suburban home.

The junta's next man in line, Army General Nicolas Lindley, 55, swiftly moved into the presidency.

More Equal. According to his fellow soldiers, Perez Godoy was growing too attached to his job as senior man among the junta's four ''co-Presidents." First, he decided that he and his wife should live in the palace while the other junta members and their wives stayed home. Next, his wife, who presumably shared authority with the three other junta wives in running the National Board for Social Assistance, seemed to want to be more equal than the others. Then Perez Godoy started issuing orders on his own.

Promising a "new Peru," Perez Godoy pushed through a 24% increase in the budget and decreed new taxes to pay for it, including a $1-a-ton levy on anchovies that provoked a strike and threatened to close down the thriving fishmeal industry. And when he refused to approve the construction of a new hospital for Vargas Prada's air force and six new ships for Torres Matos' national steamship line, the other junta members turned on him.

Pressured Promise. Politically, Perez Godoy was generally in favor of carrying out the promised June elections even if they should result in a victory for the leftist-turned-moderate APRA Party of Victor Raul Haya de la Torre. The other junta members, more responsive to the sentiments of old-line army men who remember bloody clashes with the Apristas in the 19305, were not so sure. But Peruvians outside the barracks, particularly Haya's main rivals--nationalistic Architect Fernando Belaunde Terry and ex-Army Strongman Manuel Odria--insisted that the promised elections be held. Under this pressure, the new three-man junta renewed its "unswerving decision to hold elections next June 9." New President Lindley, who cherishes no affection whatsoever for Haya and APRA, felt compelled to announce that "so far as I know, there is no army veto against any party, and specifically not against Haya."

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