The Nome Nugget

Army Minister Lucero Restores Order in Argentine

BUENOS AIRES, (AP)-With President Juan Peron keeping to the background, Army minister Maj. Gen. Franklin Lucero continued Tuesday to direct the campaign to restore full peace to this nation left tense by revolt.

The balding, square-jawed supreme commander, holding the top role in the post-revolutionary period, said again in a communique that the situation is "steadily normalizing without any inconvenience."

(Argentine refugees in Montevideo, Uruguay, believe negotiations are now underway in Buenos Aires to set up a three-man junta-including Peron-to rule the nation. The other two members reportedly would be Lucero and Rear Admiral Alberto Teisaire, the vice president.)

The first American casualty of last week's brief but bloody fighting in the capital was reported Monday night. He was Graham E. Tune, a Detroit industrial engineer employed by the Kaiser Motor Corp.'s new Argentine subsidiary. Company officials found and identified his body in a city morgue. They said a bomb apparently had dropped near him.

Despite Lucero's protestations of returning normalcy, his communique for the second successive day warned the public against rumors of continuing conflict. As he had before, Lucero termed these "completely false," but admitted that they had "increased considerably."

The communique reported that 18 planes used by the rebels in bombing government sites had been flown back from Uruguay, where the insurgent pilots fled for refuge. Fourteen junior officers returned with the planes, declaring that they had not taken any voluntary part in that rebellion.