....

• •• '.,

• •
~ a •• 1ner1cans a ,
' o

RIVDIG to Buenos Aires ftom demand for •'monies.'' Wnen I re­ The left wing talks of a Uniteci
• the ai1port, you pass und.er a
bridge on which someone llas
scrawled: ''Go home YanqÍIL" Anoth·
fused. be shouted the usuaJ word of
abuse for Amet'lcans: ''G1Jngo!ª'
•
States e111pire tn I atin .America. But
the United States has no legal au­
thority ~ere exceptin the Pan· I-er from r9'1a1•rfn9 report:
The enmity toward g11Dgos ts wide-
er bead be• added ln eqd•Jly massive spread and often. vicious eyen among ND& Canal ZOne and Puerto Rico.
le.tte,s •-vta Panam.'' Tile alp tn,l­ auch easy-going people as ·Jhe BraztJ­ She mây try to interfere, as in the ••£vesywbere Ille [lbe
fies the poelUon ot the United States lan& A pba1 anacist ln Rio broke out Dominican Republic. When interven­
ln La.Un Ama..-,a. Eve1ywbere she la ln tory: ''I bate speaking English. It tion· fails, as in Cuba. she bu to United Biates) is l'esented;
reserted: everywhere ehe ta
JÇverywhere llOUth of the border you
••e. reminds me of the Amertœus and I stand aside for fear Of world public
opinion. But the United States pres­
bate the Amer.leans. Any American
flDd not only American airlines but can come hme and make money but ence in Latin America ls so extensive ewerywlaere slae is active.••
rniaJug cœ1wpen•es. detergent factories, I work 12 hours a daly for six days a and deep that the cbarge of imperial­
ad·nen. A .I.O. men. C.I.A. men, Time week ln my chaa•Jst shop. The AmerL ism does have meaning.
magazine and tbe two warriDg cola œns come ln'' here be Imitated the
compeales. nasal 'wfdne of a lady tourist-••and
All foreigners are regarded as Yan­ they say Tve got a burn on my ABOUT40 percent of U.S. foreign ..
kees. At Tacna, Peni. I b&Ddedmy shoulder. I wanna packet of aspl­ Investment goes to La.tin America. • •

Brltisb p•.sapo¡t to the alrJtoe clerk to rlaa.' I hate the .Americans and the of which a third is in oil This and ••
help bfm recOld the personal detalla
nece8SU')' for the maultest. ''Name:
Richard West,'' he wrote, "National­
A mericNJ trusts and monopoJtes.••
A famO'•a Mexican President, Por­
other rniaera.Js are a cause of neurotic
anger to Latin Americans who con.
stantly complain that foreigners have
South Africa. We'd forge our own
cannon out Of copper and hole up •
• . ....·- -
. ........ - . •
•

tlrlo Diaz, once proclaimed: •'Poor here in the hills. We don't need any·
•
ity: United St.at.es.n OutaJde th~office despoiled the continent leaving
Kexlco! So far Imm God and so near one else. We can live on our own up
an urchin approarbed With the usual ''nothing but holes in the ground.''
to the United states!'' Ironically, lt here.'' There was a strain of serious­ •

was he who opened up Kmdco to However, countries like Argentina ., .

RICHAID WEST is tH author of • Uniteci States expioltation. And dis­ that have nationalized their oll and ness in his Joking.
An engineer in the same company
--~-·-'"'
forthconûns •oH. "Yaqui Su,• baseei tance from the United States certainty kicked out the Yankee oilmen bave
seen a drastic dwindling in revenue. said: ''At one ttme, any gringo who
OB Ws L.tin Amcñcan travels. He elso does not make for amity. The most
Those, like Venezuela, who made a worked here got four times as much
wratc -O.e White Tril>a of Ama• encl southem countries Argentina, Chile as back home. Then three times as
•• co author of -O.e Mamg of the and Umguay-are among tbe moat deal with the Americans, have become
rich. It is a bmtal truth that the much. Then when I arrived it was
Prime Miftistcr,• altout Hatold Wihaa. virulent Yanqul-balters. twice as much. Now a gringo has to
g1eat American, British and Dutch
fight hard to get as much money as
,. ._
~
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,...... .\ . .~·=- ·~ ~---. ·, ~-~ .\ . . ~- . ~f;. ~,-t:':""'~--. .
'
. '
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··1 .
,. •• ·-.i.
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oll companies know how to find and
produce the sbaff. Amateurs do not. he would get back ln the old country.
They used to ~ for knowledge.. In
·. ·.,L :?1.~.: "'.,. ··' , _;.~ . -··\~~: -,....ilì1J Koreover the Americans have
°"-., r·.'· ." :·~. .· ·:..,a.,
.
...•• •. . ..., .. • .. - ' ... .r<• ;:,,
_.,.S".·
·e; ,•,I·
those days there were very few na­
'
. ~
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, e-, ~:,;.
.
_J,.. •
··:,~"· .:i·
r •• -::
. .•
•
~'~.·.•
'· ·.~.
. . . .._...
'T":~,f'
.r: ..• •. .,_,~----~
~ . .:.r_~ learned not to be too gzeedy. Before tives at ·the executive l~el. Since then
. • ...
.••
P.,.A-:-
", ..: .. r -" ;1..._-. ...., .•• • • 4 •
.. .. •
the First World War. the oil com­ they've been educating the natives
...- :'-1··. . ~-:-
.,,,.., · . ··...
..... , ~-.,_~.~--::.. ....
•
,4.. ... ••. , •
-i..·"',
•"'
"'~·#·
... • .,.. . •
' ..
;
.
.
., .
..... ... I' panies in Kexico paid a minimal and being a gringo doesn't count any
. ·••
.! ..·.·Jill
. ...
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. : .. ...... ·. ... . .
•4 ·-
~;,,...
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...

,
.
,
! ' .,l· .• revenue to the at.ate and mere sub­ more,"
.
' . . ·' .•. - .. -
~·· • ···~
• ·1ti-·
·-
!~../' ..~
.. ~ .... ~·
.;..,.-
sistence wages to their mnployes. To­ The Chilean Govemment bas also
... ,.;¡ ....
' ...~..
-...- ..
r • .-
.... ., . ... ,.- ..
-· •-..1·
'-,, ...
,f*'-V
, - . ~
. .. day Venezuela keeps about 75 cents in
··-:-:··
"-1.~- -1 ·.~ ~ • ""\tt;·. !'.fi ........
" : . · ....... ... ,; ,,,.,
-.
.,: •
introduced higher personal taxes for
·~....r.·~..,. . ./il.~
. ../
,. .,...,.
•.a .~.tf~~-·- .-,:-::~-:...~.
' ~.. ..
-~ . . • • ,,,. :·
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.•.'...
"' ·' ' . ....... ner:y dollar earned by the foreign oil the American copper men. ••No, we
.
:· . . .. .iS~. /..-..
. . , .. : . ' companies. which are also bounUful
. ",'!' :.~...
._:'· :
> li'~
.. :.;. ··~f::·!_..:··:.
"'
don•t mind paying more taxes as
.
employers. The sugar, coffee and fruit long as we see some result," said the
.•
.
' ....
.~-
.,. -­". . companies, too, have learned the hard
lesson of Cuba: if any .American com­
wife of another director. ••u we could
see some roads or schools we'd think
,. PRDN wants to survive these days it our money had been well spent. But
•• t
,,
•• ). must put back money Into the eeun­ what's terrible ls to pay tax and to •
,
try. Kost U.S. firms DOW train locals see au the money just going down the •••,_ • •
for jobs at an levels; they are eager
to start joint capital enterprises as a
drain.''
Other Americans resent their chang­
•
• •
•
• •
•
•, ...
•
. .,._.....
.
me.ans of winning cooperation. ing social status. •'If you•re a gtlngo
•

:Many American 1>11stnessmen resent

the loss of privilege and presUge. A
ln Bolivia nowt they'll push you off - •
' •
•
•
••
-.~...~-,...
..
.-
•
the pavement,•• said a mining engi­ • • • ' .

director of one of the biggest U.S. neer who had come from that country
copper companies in northern Cblle to Chile. ''The Indians have rea11y
was 111.oat distressed by .the recent taken over and believe you me, the
''Cblleanizatlon.'' •'Yes, a lot of us only way to treat .the Indian is to
are very worried.'' he told. me. •IJD beat hl•aa rough.'' However.. most ... ·. . __
-
. .
fact we tblnk we could fo1m our own Americans seem to apprectate the •
•• ,

separate republic, like the Boers tn justice of (Continued o. Pa,g6 24)

•
Communist slogan in Cuzco, Pau. Right­
-"Americans end Communists in Latin A. ·Pace Corpsman and a Colombian
America are over-afraid of each villager build a clinic. ••Although the
olha anel greatly overestimate each Communist press greets ell Corpsmen
ott.er•s power. ln a sense they elso as •new spies for the Pentagon,· most
thrive off each other:• that I met see111cd popular:•

Published: May 29, 1966

Copyright © The New York Times
 Wby Latins Say. •ao Bome. Yce11quï•
(OMtllt1t1e4 f• ona. Page 8)
glY'Jng the locals an equal Iba.re ID
wealth anel OP1G1l11ntty.
tJNFORTUNATELY.tor the
Americans, their reverent atUtude.to­
ward business · ts not cœnmon. south
ot the border. ''It's a question of
semantics,•• said a BrazlJ\an IMJslnesa
man. ••rn La.Un America you wm find
that capltaHa,,, ia a baci word BD4
natlonalls111 ia something beautiful.
In America it's the other way ~ct.~·
An A merlcan diplomat, aJ,o ID Rio,
said of the left-wing Brazilians:
1'They
have a strange idea of ·-capltal­
tm,,. They regard lt rafber as ·Karl
Ka.a regarded tt- as tota.U)' heart­
less, and. al~y~ a monopoly. - The
people here never speak ot the oll
companies but of tile lnternatiopat
petroleum cartels or the petroleum .
tmsts.''
The different attitude helps to· ex.
.... eat .....
cla•e••glag social slat••• ln Jz1i,lin
l•e11ds. •u yoa•re a gwiago ia
Bolivia now. tlley•ß pnsh pa oll
... •··········
• d fili ,,
plain w1', individual Americans and .
companies have so often proved pio­
neers Jn Latin-American business. One
example is Kent Lutey, who started
the lee-cream industry in Brazil: ••1
was ln China for 15 years 1D the
frozen-food and dried-egg business.
Then ln 19'0 it looked as ~ough
China was heading for trouble so I
carne to B1azil to start a frozen-food
and clrled-egg business, aiming to sell
to Brit.al». But after two years we
weren't selling anything .beca1,se our
rna:iu customer was England and she
was getting dried eggs from the
United States under Lend J,eue and
we couldn't meet tbis competition.
••so we went Into .the Ice ere.am
b11stness, which rd done before ln
Cbtua. It was a new thlilg here in
Brazil. Everyone said that we'd never
get Br11zfllans to eat Ice c1eam be­
ca••se lt hasn't got a Jot of sugar ln
it. They aald that BrazlJJans would
eat tee cream the way they eat sher­
bet-jlist taking a. few spoonfuls and
tben stopping. So I looked around and
studied the dietary habits. I went to
fiestas at people's homes and I uw
the tables laden with sweet things
and pastries. Aud, of course, like
everycme else who comes to BraztJ,
I was fascinated by t.he amount of
sugar thq put ln their coffee. which
Jnakes lt like a syrup. I was thor­
oughly di~ro11raged.
'"l.ilen I looked around at what
Brazilians were drinklng most. It
waen't wt11e. It wam•t garapa.. It
Published: May 29, 1966
Copyright © The New York Times
·was beer, and Brazilian beer ls excel-
· Jent but lt Isn't sweet. So I decided
that If they didn't want sweet beer
they wouldn't mlud the Jack of sugar
bl ice cremn. Then I looked around
again at the fiestas and I noticed
that although the tables were piled
high wlth sweet things, they were
still piled· high at the end of the
evenJug. People simply weren't eating
them.••
The Ice cream was an instant suc­
ceu and the company Is a blue-chip
abare on the Rio stock exchange.
When Brazil ran Into ·bad economic
trouble a few years ago, Mr. Lutey
BÒld out his Interest: •-with the 1,na- •
tlon, I was running out of steam. I:
couldn't grow, and U I couldn't grow
I wasn't interested.''. Be had enjoyed
the sheer act of business achieve­
ment, he said: !'In Brazf I you've got
to be your own lawyer, your own
engineer, your own financier. You
bave to be a generalist-the -word
8,SSIJrnes new meaning. There•s
nothing more satisfying than achieve­
ment unless It's sex.'' The Bra.zlllans,
although industrious, are not qUité so··
excited by the romance of b••siness.
To tbe carioca, or Rio man, .there's
nothing more satisfying tbM sex­
unless It's more sex.
Many Ameriœns, just like Kent
Lutey, have ·been deterred from fur­
ther investment ln Latin America by
inflation, bureaucracy, graft and the
threat of political troubles. The Com­
munlsts who say ,tbat American cap­
ital has taken over the continent aré
ver¡y wide of the mark. Kost Latin
American countries offer a law return
on Investment, compared to the
United States itself or to stable,
advanced, countries. F•r more A meri- ·
can money comes into Britain tban
Into Braz11. ••And Cuba. bas Inter- .
vened,'' said a U.S. economist ln Rio.
''There Is a tendency to be cautious.
'nlere ls really nothing-more conserv­
ative than privately earned money.''
A chemical company executive tn
São Paulo remarked: ''Brazil is stm
below par in the world. in terms of
mvesbnent. Brazil's doors have opened
a bit but they are still more closed
than many other countries~ What
Brazilian polltlcfans stm don't seem
to realt ze Is that Brazil must compete
Jn thé world capital market. They
have the Idea. that their country Is so
blg and Important that people have
to Invest here ln order to keep their
market.••
Tsl!: United· sta.tés
Governm.ent
. cannot force private companies to
Invest in Latin America. Therefore,
most money Is channeled fbrough
official aid agmcles ln the form of
loam, credits and direct grants. Some
. of these aid projects go w1ong. Be­
tween the wars, American scientists
had the bright_ idea of stocking I ,ake
Titicaca with salmon trout. Tile fish
_g1ew to a massive size but unfortu­
nateJ.Y they did not appeal to the
taste of the local Indtßns; and they
quickly ate all the extattng fish on
which the IndJana lived.
In the sarne -way, American api·
(Continued on Page 28)

(Contin,,ed from Page 24:)
cultural experts in Paraguay last
year ordered sacks of seeds of the
L.1t'
~-·~
pecan nut, which they righUy as­
sumed would be suitable to the local
soil. Unfortunately they had forgot­
ten that 20 years must elapse between
planting and the first crop of nuts.
The Paraguayans, whose life span is
short were not interested and the
seeds were left Jn their sacks.
Often the aid is badly or tactless]~
administered. In Northeast Brazil, one
of the poorest areas in the continent,
boxes of food labeled U.S. A.I.D.-for
the Agency for IntemaUonaJ Develop­
ment-found their way into the black
market. At Recife, the A.LD. people
nin adult-education classes in which
the students get a parcel of food if
they attend all the lessons for a fort­
night. ••At first,•• said the A.I.D. man,
"there was a tendency to come just
for the food, but now they seem to
take a real interest in .the study.''
Maybe. But is there not something
rather disgusUng in bribing hungry
people to learn to read and write?
In spite of its often crude tactics
and propaganda, U.S. A.I.D. has
achieved much in backward districts
like northeast Brazil. . It has pushed
ahead the building of roads and
bridges, the electrification of fan11s
and the construction of school houses.
''Three years ago," said an A.I.D.
man. ''they were ready to write off
the northeast. They said lt was going
Communist and we might as well for.
get it. But it didn't go Communist,
partly because we were doing some­
thing for them. We built roads and
schools. There was one place where
we built 100 schools in 100 days. We
brought electricity into the country.
So when some Communist agitator
got up and -told them they might as
well go the ·barricades, some slob
would get up and say 'but my child
went to school today' or •a friend of
mìne's got. electric light.'••
SoME countries, like Paraguay and
Bolivia, are virtually run by U.S. tech­
nicians .and administrators. ''When
you talk about the American presence
in Latin America:• said one cynical
New Yorker, "do you mean presence
or presents?'' The Americans not only
prop up Latin-American business but
even the trade unions.
The great American Federation of
Labor-Congress of Industrial Organ­
izations employs training officers and
lecturers throughout the subcontinent
and is subsidized by the Government.
Its representative in Sio Paulo, an
American trade-unton officer called
Gilbert Richmond, refused to see any­
thing strange in the U.S. Government
backing the operation: "Our answer
is that the U.S . supports almost every
kind of institution-I'd cut a lot ot
them out. Why shouldn't it support
the unions? It would look suspicious
if it didn't.'' Funds came not only
from A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the U.S. Gov­
ernment but ''from big business not
all big business but especialw those
I ¡
.
- I
..
•
•
"Communists who say 1'metican capi·
companies with interests in Latin
America.''
The spectacle of big business
financing its own unions is odd in­
deed. But the A.F.L.-C.I.O. makes it
clear that the unions will not be too
militant. Their representa.tive, Charles
E. Wheeler, director of the American
Institute for .the Development of Free
Trade Unionism in Buenos Aires, said
that ••our aim is to help all the unions
which have not been infiltrated by the
Commies and so on.''
THE Peace Corps does a fine and
underestimated job ln Latin America.
Its members teach boxing in Peru,
basketball in Uruguay, and a Peace
Corps girl plays· the trumpet in the
Bolivian Nation.al Orchestra. The
Peace Corps man· or girl arrives in a
village or slum community, makes
friends with .Ute locals and helps them
to fon11 some kind of self-government.
Although the Communist press greets
each planeload of Peace Corps rep­
resentatives as ••new spies for the
Pentagon,'' most that I met seemed
popular in the locality. They mlX
with and understand Ute Latin-Amer­
ican poor as the Latin-American rich_
never attempt to do.
A girl who teaches hygiene by the
shore of I.ake Titicaca described how
she had won over the Indians by
lea.ming their dances and wearing
their costumes: ••For instance. the
other day I went out duck-shooting
on the Jake with some Indians~­
although I didn't shoot, myself-.but
none of the other nurses or teachers
would have gone out with Jos Indios
•.. If ever they bring up .the Negro
subject 1n·the U.S.A., ~. can I sure
throw it back at them," A British
Published: May 29, 1966
Copyright © The New York Times
......
• I-
•
•
A
-=---- ···~ .. . ..
........... -.
__ ....,,. .... _,.,,:..
.. .
~ ....,,.
____
.... _...., .. .,.
'
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-
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..
Synthetic yarn is fashioned at a U.S. plant in Venezuela•
tal has taken over the continent ate very wide of the mall,"
-·- e •,•.
ç'
-,~ .
,.. ~,
diplomat in Bolivia spoke with admì­
ration of Peace Corps hardiness: ''If
you go up to the lake at the weekend
in your car and you see a bicycle in
front with a broad behind on it, it's
sure to be some Peace Corps man
pedaling off to -hisadobe hut in .the
back of beyond. And they live in that
hut all the year round.',
In the Dominican Republic and
other revolutionary areas. the Peace
Corps people often side with the Left
against the United states. This does
not mean naiveté or Communist sym­
pathies; simply that they are more in
touch with real life than are the diplo­
mats or the crassly bigoted C.I.A.
people.
So~e criticism of the Peace Corps
is made by rival organizations in the
same work. In Venezuela, a man from
Acción (Action), a privately spon­
sored (mainly North American) group
working among the city slum-dwell·
ers, said that ''everyone knows about
the Peace Corps. It's accepted by
sweethearts and grandfathers as the
thing to do ..• Acción is a little more
small and daring.'• An Acción girl
was asked why she had chosen to join
it in preference to the Peace Corps.
She answered: ''I gave up wearing
sneakers when I left college. Don't
you know how the Peace Corps all
wear sneakers and jeans. And they•re
so dirty. I mean we work Jn the field,
but ••• ''
OST Americans in Latin Amer­
ica try hard to be good ambassadors.
A •businessman in São Paulo told me:
''We have no American Club and I
think if we tried to found one it
wouldn't succeed and I for one
wouldn't want to join it. I think most
AmeriQns here rather pride them­
selves on being members of Brazilian
clubs," An old-timer ·m São Paulo
said: ''The Americans who came
down here 15 years ago didn't learn
(Oontin,ied on Fo1l010i,ig Page)
 (Continued from Precetlittg Page)
Portuguese. People who came here 10
years ago still didn't speak Portu­
guese. Lots of them didn't even know
we spoke Portuguese here. They
thought we spoke Spanish.'' Now they
learn Portuguese even before they ar­
rive. American businessmen in· São
Paulo earned tbis tribute from a club
batman: ''They drink a Jot of whisky.
They only come at lunch time. They
don't make any noise.''
Yet the Americans in São PA.tifo,
largest industrial center in Latin
America, have not become a real part
of the city. The children go~ Amer­
ican schools, dances aud go-go clubs.
then back to the United States for
college. The Americans m&rQ' among
themselves. Above all they very sel­
dom settle in Lat.in America.
ln this they are quite 11n]ikethe
hundreds of thousands of Ger111ans,
Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese
who have emigrated to Latin Amer­
ica and taken new nationality. There
are more British people in Argentina
alone .tlaan Americans living in all
Latin America.
Latin America does not appeal to
the North American imagination.
Parts of Mexico, like Acapulco, are
popular with holidaymakers. Some
Americans dream of venturing up
the Amazon. Most are hysterically
frightened of Cuba. But if you exam­
ine American paperback novels, or
watch ,television and cinema, or talk
with ••nlversity students, it soon be·
comes clear that Latin America has
not entered American folklore and
fantasy. The Americans are intrigued
by Europe and the Far East but not
by any ·place south of Panama. The
few good foreign books and films
about J,atin America are the work of
Europeans~ In the same way, most
Latin - American tnteüectuaïs look to
Paris, Rome or London rather than
New York. There is no real meeting
of minds between the gringo and the
J,atin.
Many latin America.ns now believe
that President Kennedy liked them.
understood them and wanted to help
them. His photog1,aph appears on the
walls of shacks and rich apartment
buildings. At Paramaribo, Surinam,
there is even a Kennedy restaurant,
complete with the Stars and Stripes
and a alog;an ''God Bless America.''
When Kennedy was assassinated,
many idealists left the IeStin-Amer.
·- -~-I"\.
At a ,emote 1dtool in Ecuatlor, pupils receive instructions ~i•radio.
•tsn•t there SOl,,cthing rather disgusting in 'bribing hungry people to lcam to read
and •rite? [But] in spite of often crude tactics, U.S. Al.O. has achieved much.'•
lean section of the State Department:
the Latins themselves complain that
the U.S.A. no longer takes any inter­
est in them. Yet many new-found ven­
.erators of Kennedy abused him dur­
ing his life.
THE best American diplomat in
Latin America, a fon,1er Kennedy
aide, was a J'ohnson appoinbnent as
Ambassador to Chile. Ambassador
Ralph Dungan is often accused of
trying to be a '•shirt-sleeve diplomat.••
He is loud, hearty and almost as
rough in language as Johnson him­
self. After nearly a year in Chile,
Ambassador Dungan still spoke little
Spanish and with an awful accent.
''It's a great privilege for you that
I'm here today,'' he told a group of
astonishedschool children. His only
certaïn phrase is ••very .interesting,''
which he will use even in answer to
pleas from beggars. When an ag­
grieved old man thrust a petition at
him once, Dungan smiled, said, ••ve1y
interesting,'' and then snapped out in
English, ''What did that guy want?''
Ambassador Dungan bas made
scores of visits an over Chile, talking
to slum dwellers, factory hands, fish·
ermen and ·housewives. He has ac­
quired an understanding of Chile
rare in ambassadors who have been
in a country three times as long. He
has quarreled with his own staff by
forbidding them to sell tax-free goodS
on the black market; he has quar­
reled with some of the mining com­
panies by insisting that they accept
greater Chileanization; he has stood
up to arguments with Communists
and right-wing critics.
When the press revealed that the
Pentagon had financed a social sur­
vey in Chile to test the country's
readiness to combat Communism,
Dungan raged at the Pentagon. His
support for the U.S. Government's
policy in the Dominican Republic
is at · the very most lukewann. He
shuns the smart set in Santiago and
has taken earnest and rare Interest
ln the Peace Corps.
The Chileans enthuse over Dungan;
nor do they mind his· shirt-sleeve
manners. Once, on a trip into north­
ern Chile, he arrived for a fishing
trip at a S111all town wearing an old
sweater and trousers and fo11nd him­
self facing a delegation dressed in
their Sunday best. Some people called
• parties call CUba ••a dagger pointing
.:-.. ' .
Published: May 29, 1966
Copyright © The New York Times
,,La•i11 America
.
••es aol
. appeal lo
the North Americ-111 imagination. Pa ..ts
ol Mexico .... popular with llolida¡­
makers. Some Americans cira-em of
•
venta•in9 up tbe Am-ezon. Most are
byslerically lrigbtened ol Calta. BaL • -~~
this a breach of Latin f01i1aality but
none of the Chileans objected.
An anti-American Chilean gave this
left-handed compliment to the Am­
bassador: ''He is like how do you
call that clever animal ?-yes, a fox.
In Chile nobody visits the poor people
in the slums. When somebody comes
to them, smiles at their children, lets
his wife be kiaed by the women,
they are very happy. They will say
for years, 41 shook hands with an
American -ambassador.• And he knows
this. Do you notice he's always s111il­
ing ?'' Yet the glad-handing covers
a genuine interest and friendliness.
This the Chilean people understand,
too.
AMBASSADOR DUNGAN is ex­
ceptional among U.S. diplomats in
Latin America. Most are timid, over·
anxious and plagued by the often con­
flicting work of the C.I.A. and other
intelligence organizations. One am­
bassador solemnly assured me that
the problems of Latin America came
from making the Comm11nist party
legal. ''The state could be compared
to a house ln which the outside and
the ·roof are democracy and liberty
and the Commies are termìtes gnaw­
ing away at the structure.'' The meta­
phor is as meaningless as irrelevant.
The Communist party is legal in on1y
a few Latin - American countries,
which are also the ones in no danger
of Communis,n.
The Americans and Communists in
Latin America are over-afraid of each
other and greatly overestimate each
other's power. In a sense they also
thrive off each other. Whenever riot
or Tevolution threatens, the Amer­
icans are ready to offer . aid or arms
to stop the danger of Ccmmunis1n.
Whenever the Americans step in, the
Comm~ts can play on instinctive
anti-gringo feelings. Many people in
Cuba accepted Communism because
the Americans called Castro a Com­
munist and because they hated the
Americans. In a sense Ca9tro himself
became a Communist for the same
reason.
Fear of Cuba and Communism cor­
rupts American thinking on Latin
America. It ls expressed with a víru­
Jenee and wildness almost unknown
in time of peace. A respected Senator
can talk on television about the dan·
gers of Cuba invading and conquer­
ing Florida. The politicians of both
at the heart of the United States.''
'Db.e metaphor is nei~er apposite nor
original It was Goebbels who said
tbat ''Czechoslovakia is a dagger
pointing at the heart of Germany.''