Trial by Terror

Most members of Argentina's besieged business community have known one or more of the 170 people--many of them foreign executives--who were kidnaped last year. All gratefully noted that only one foreigner had been killed; the rest were released after ransom had been paid. Now the situation has changed. The dwindling community of foreign businessmen in Argentina is frightened by a change in terrorist tactics that could not only lead to a number of deaths but also further damage Argentina's wobbly economy.

Their fear was caused by an announcement by the Marxist-Leninist People's Revolution Army, or E.R.P., which kidnaped an Esso Argentina executive, Victor Samuelson, 36, a month ago. The terrorists have said that he will be "tried" to determine the "crimes" of multinational corporations. The implication was that if found guilty, Samuelson would be executed. The guerrillas added that Exxon, Esso's U.S. parent company, owed $10 million in "back taxes," payable to E.R.P. Last week Esso was still negotiating with the guerrillas on payment of the ransom, believed to be the largest ever demanded in Argentina.

As the bargaining proceeded, two local businessmen were kidnaped. Jose Ludvik, 61, retired director of a paper plant in the Buenos Aires area, was seized near the plant. Douglas Roberts, 46, the No.

2 man of PepsiCo's Argentine subsidiary, was abducted near his suburban home.

Considering how easily Samuelson, the general manager of Esso's Campana refinery, was kidnaped, foreign executives had reason to worry. Eight E.R.P. terrorists burst into the club run by Esso for employees of its Campana plant, 50 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. They headed straight for the table where Samuelson sat lunching with friends. Six other kidnapers, who had earlier infiltrated the club, quickly rose from their tables to help shove the American into a getaway car. Several days later a photograph was sent to Buenos Aires newspapers by the E.R.P. showing a nervous Samuelson posed in front of a poster of Che Guevara, the Argentine-born guerrilla killed in Bolivia in 1967.

The kidnaping climaxed months of terrorist activity in which the emotions of Argentina's businessmen have been violently whipsawed. On Nov. 22, leftist guerrillas ambushed and brutally shot to death John Swint, the American general manager of a Ford Motor Co. subsidiary. Eight days later, Ford got a call indicating that unless $4,000,000 was paid to the guerrillas, more lives would be "jeopardized." As a result, 22 executives of the company and their families left Argentina immediately. Ford, the country's largest carmaker, seriously considered closing its plants, which employ about 10,000 people.

Razor-Thin Profits. The terrorists' increasingly flagrant acts have finally spurred aging President Juan Peron, 78, to action. And well they should. One high American executive estimated that the kidnapings have already caused 60% of the foreign businessman in Argentina to leave the country in the past year. If the abductions continue, they could jeopardize an economy already deeply troubled by razor-thin profits and lack of capital investment by private industry. Prodded by such concerns, Peron reversed his benign neglect of Argentina's frightened foreigners and made a point of receiving the Ford vice president for Asia, the Pacific and Latin America, Edgar Molina; it was the first time that Peron had met with a U.S. businessman since returning from exile last June. He told Molina that any company wanting guards would receive them. Shortly thereafter, 80 armed border patrolmen turned up at Ford's plants.

Doubts remained whether Peron could bring the terrorists under control. During the turbulent years of his exile, guerrilla groups on both the left and right were formed as underground cells to advance their militant causes. Most of these cells fought for Peron's return, but now that the old man is back in the saddle, they have refused to disband. Instead, they have taken to kidnaping businessmen as a means of financing their operations. And Peronists have increasingly turned on each other. A left-wing Peronist lawyer and his wife were recently murdered in Buenos Aires, presumably by rightists, and a member of the leftist Peronist Youth Movement charged that he had been abducted, beaten and burned with cigarettes. The suspects: right-wing Peronists.

Amidst this internecine turmoil, Peron remains aloof and caught in a dilemma: he cannot restore law and order in Argentina while his own movement is riven with internal strife. If he tries, he puts himself in the position of fighting his own supporters.

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