A Time to Act
LINEBERRY, WILLIAM P.
THE U.S. AND LATIN AMERICAN POLICY A Time to Act By William ?? Lineberry After President Johnson returns from Manila and the agonizing issues of Vietnam, he must begin grappling again with his...
...AND LATIN AMERICAN POLICY A Time to Act By William ?? Lineberry After President Johnson returns from Manila and the agonizing issues of Vietnam, he must begin grappling again with his long unattended problems in Latin America...
...Latin Americans have been calling for reform of the OAS for years, but Washington characteristically failed to join in the chorus until a security crisis in the Dominican Republic in 1965 forced his hand...
...Chilean and Venezuelan newspapers now write fearfully of the development of a RioBuenos Aires axis based on the well-known points of contact between the Brazilian and Argentine armies...
...The first weapon against Communism in Latin America is economic development and social justice-social justice in particular because many times economic development favors only a small group...
...cooperation was music to the ear...
...Communism is a danger in Latin America because it has found roots in the soil here...
...Otherwise the rhetoric will not match the action, and the only thing that will really flourish in this hemisphere is the cynicism of which Latin Americans by now, I think, have had quite enough...
...after an extended tour of Latin American countries...
...are seen to prevail no matter what other members may think...
...While Johnson was making his policy speech, the Presidents of Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, together with representatives of Ecuador and Peru, were laying plans in Bogota for the establishment of a Latin American Common Market...
...As one official in the Chilean foreign ministry complained, "Sometimes we feel that the United States prefers strong governments to democratic ones...
...One of the commonest complaints against the Johnson Administration in Latin America, in fact, is that its acts have failed to match its promises a vice with which Latins themselves are altogether familiar in their own governments...
...They look to politics to supply some of these answers...
...Yet U.S...
...Senator Fulbright, for example, indicated that he does not favor and the Senate would not approve changes in the OAS treaty that would make economic aid an oblieation of the U.S...
...and whose actions become legal obligations for all (since the OAS is a treaty...
...Yet it remains to be seen whether and how the President's words will be translated into deeds...
...It thrives with or without Castro because he is not the important element...
...Thus Secretary of State Rusk could plead with respect to OAS negotiations: "We are committed to rapid change in both economic and social fields in Latin America...
...The President went out of his way to stress two matters of particular importance to that liberal-leftist Latin American viewpoint with which U.S...
...He said that "the resources required for these tasks must not be needlessly spent on arms," and that "we just must find a way to avoid the cost of procuring and maintaining unnecessary military equipment that will take clothes off the back and food away from the stomach and education away from the minds of our children.' With Argentina's new status as a "gorilla preserve" fixed in everyone's mind, these words, too, gave evidence of a new approach by the Administration- at least in relation to its military assistance programs...
...The Administration's military assistance program for Latin America in this fiscal year is running at about the same level ($72 million) as in years past, and Argentina and Brazil, now saddled with military dictatorships, remain its two maior recipients...
...Without reforms," President Frei told me last April, "the OAS is useless...
...When the military regime that ousted Goulart in 1964 opened its arms to U.S...
...all in all, the President was moving to align his own policies with those of Latin America's most progressive and democratic elements which have heretofore been highly critical of the U.S...
...We are not interested in integrating our gorillas," Chile's Christian Democratic Senator Renan Fuentealba told me, "but in integrating our economies...
...But if President Johnson means what he says about integration, if he means what he says about curbing the strength of militarism, if OAS reform is to signal a long-needed revision of U.S...
...The President then pledged "to move boldly along this path...
...policy, Washington's attitude will have to change...
...and drifted steadily leftward...
...The Panel of Nine-the so-called nine wise men appointed to give Latin Americans an advisory voice in the administration of the Alliance- made pointed reference to that fact when they all resigned in a huff last spring...
...The fact that Europe was industrialized and economically sophisticated while Latin America is underdeveloped does not, I think, vitiate the important principles of cooperation and learning through experience that are involved...
...Latin Americans well know that every time a military regime slams the door on constitutional processes, the prospects for meaningful steps toward economic integration go aglimmering...
...The problem of Communism is entirely different when seen from the perspectives of the United States and Latin America," he explained...
...The Administration already provides $57 million annually (apart from military aid) to train Latin American police forces, and it is not unreasonable to assume that this program could be expanded, if necessary, to meet internal security needs...
...military advisors now running loose on the continent...
...The President's speech celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Alliance for Progress last August could mark a welcome turning point, though Latin Americans have learned from experience to be skeptical of U.S...
...It is by no means clear that the Administration has shaken its obsession with the security problem, despite the tone of President Johnson's remarks...
...This is true not only because military and democratic regimes fail to mix well in Latin America, but because the militarists themselves tend to think in narrow, selfish terms...
...Yet a genuine multilateralization of the Alliance, accomplished through OAS reform, would probably constitute the boldest move toward integration the hemisphere could make...
...Ever since Castro showed his colors in Cuba, however, Washington's policies toward Latin America have been security-oriented and preoccupied with fighting a Communist menace...
...He stressed the role of the Alliance as a weapon of immediate social impact, a grassroots program emphasizing agrarian reform, education and housing for the poor...
...He said, for example, that the tasks of the Alliance "are going to be accomplished by concrete acts and not by rhetoric," and for those living in the ramshackle favelas of Brazil, who have come to see the Alliance as 90 per cent rhetoric and 10 per cent action, these words are no doubt welcome...
...The Johnson Administration has been resisting the type of OAS reforms that Frei and other Latin democrats are seeking...
...Johnson scheduled a meeting of Latin American heads of state for October to inquire into the troubles, postponed it first to December and now to sometime in the late winter or early spring of 1967...
...policy makers like to identify, rhetorically at least...
...Such a development would effectively split the South American continent down the middle and leave its two largest nations preoccupied with the specious tasks of hunting down Communists and harassing intellectuals...
...There should be a lesson in all this somewhere, though in his speech the President failed to put a finger on it directly...
...It simply does not make sense to keep on feeding gorillas when they periodically break out of their cages and run amok...
...And so, there is a technical and structural problem for us on this matter...
...Whatever concessions Washington has been willing to make along economic lines, it has sought corresponding concessions from Latin governments on the "peace-keeping" issue...
...They believe the OAS has no future as a peace-keeping agency concerned primarily with problems of interAmerican security...
...Even now, after more than two years of steady disillusionment with the reform potential and democratic proclivities of the military government, Brazil continues to get almost as much aid as all the rest of Latin America combined...
...In decisive ways, the Administration's stand on OAS reform will reveal the actual extent to which U.S...
...They seek in Communism a way to change their lives and that is what Communism and sometimes Communism alone offers them...
...The reader will recall how, in the midst of the Algerian crisis, French Generals Salan, Jouhaud and Challe theorized that the duty of the revolutionary army is to "rescue" the state when its vital interests are about to be sold out by corrupt or incompetent politicians...
...rhetoric...
...The other key point was the need for economic integration and U.S...
...It is worthwhile remembering that the highly successful European Common Market had its roots in the Marshall Plan, a truly multilateral program...
...willingness to help further the process...
...Thus Senator Fulbright could complain earlier this year that "bilateral [aid] programs tend to identify us with particular regimes, in a way that makes us prisoners of smaller countries...
...Again, for those who envision economic integration, and the great broadening of markets it implies, as a key source of salvation for a splintered and impoverished continent, this pledge of U.S...
...Certainly the generals who now run Brazil and Argentina will tell you that it is, in fact, the duty of the armv to "rescue" the state from the machinations of corrupt or incomDetent politicians, for that is precisely what they claim to have done...
...As usual the Senator was speaking with reference to Vietnam, but Washington faces this problem much closer to home under the Alliance for Progress...
...aid, Washington gratefully reSDonded by promoting Brazil to the rank of number one aid recipient in the hemisphere...
...Ironically, the State Department has gained a boost for its stand from those very liberals in the U.S...
...What is overlooked in all this, however, is the extent to which the inter-American system would benefit if the OAS were invested with increased economic and social authority...
...As the other republics are forming their policies to accelerate this movement at the moment, we are now reviewing the opportunities for joint action throughout the hemisphere...
...But in Latin America Communism is an internal, not a foreign, problem...
...But at the reorganization meetings held in Rio late in 1965 and in Panama early this year, that idea was assaulted by a group of progressive Latin American states...
...Now, when we get into specific questions of incorporating such ideas into treaties, then we do have to look at our own constitutional structure and the responsibilities of the Congress and the extent to which we can go in imposing limitations upon our Congress by treaty, in matters affecting such things as trade and aid...
...Washington's preoccupation with the problems of inter-American security has made it reluctant to yield any of the political leverage it possesses in the administration of Alliance funds...
...aid programs...
...Brazil is a case in point...
...In his speech on the Alliance President Johnson promised to "move boldly" along the path of Latin American integration, though his concrete suggestions as to what could be done along these lines (development of regional water systems, the establishment of "multinational institutions for advanced training in science and technology") are not exactly dramatic or revolutionary propositions...
...In these matters the will and power of the U.S...
...Senate who have been among the foremost critics of our old hard line policies toward Latin America...
...In the United States, Communism is a problem of power, a problem of relative military and economic strength among the U.S., Russia and China...
...All but forgotten in the scramble of diplomatic activity on Southeast Asia is a quiet crisis in inter-American relations...
...I am personally convinced that there are elements within the U.S...
...He is right...
...In a sense Brazil's new government has bought our support with our own money...
...Out of the Dominican crucible," President Johnson declared, "the 20 American nations must now forge a stronger shield against disaster...
...Of course, Generals Salan, Jouhaud and Challe are now in prison and their Secret Army Organization is all but forgotten in France, but not a few Latin Americans think its appeal has drifted across the Atlantic to find a new home-like the mess in Vietnam, another legacy of French culture to the West...
...It is very important for the United States to understand this...
...embassy officials in Rio confess to restless nights pondering Washington's heavy commitments and its close ties to an increasingly unpopular regime...
...The strength of Communism in Latin America is born and resides in the masses, among peasants and marginal people without land, slum dwellers and workers with low salaries-in other words, in the poverty and more than that in the misery of the people...
...embassy in Rio, and probably in Buenos Aires too, who encourage such idiocy in the name of fighting Communism...
...Such men as President Eduardo Frei Montalva of Chile, for example, have long despaired over Washington's care and feeding of Latin American gorillas, have long urged an emphasis on social reform and grassroots assistance in the Alliance and have long stressed the importance of economic integration as a means of strengthening Latin America's economic and political posture vis-a-vis the U.S...
...We are ready to work in close cooperation toward an integrated Latin America," Johnson said...
...It was a committee of Europeans that determined, in cooperation with the U.S., which countries received what and why, and in the process learned at a very practical level the values of economic cooperation-as well, to be sure, as its headaches...
...approach...
...has lined up with Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia (each ruled by a general) in insisting upon a discussion of "security" problems and the need for a hemispheric force, while Chile, Colombia and Venezuela have been trying to keep the focus on economic and social questions...
...Basically, the Administration has been reluctant to shift too much authority over inter-American economic relations to a body whose members enjoy juridical equality (19 Latin votes to one for the U.S...
...The experience gained by Latin Americans in hammering out an aid program for 19 countries ranging the political spectrum from democratic Left to authoritarian Right should prove invaluable to the integration cause, or else ruinous to an impossible dream...
...None the less, the inter-American force is by no means a dead issue in Washington, and in the preliminary skirmishing over an agenda for the heads of state conference, the U.S...
...The opportunity is here now for a new thrust forward to show the world the way to true international cooperation in the cause of peace and in the struggle to win a better way of life for all of us.' Washington's idea of a stronger OAS was one buttressed by an inter-American military force to deal with future Dominican-type contingencies...
...Under Goulart, Brazil had ignored the Alliance, attacked the U.S...
...But there are indications, none the less, that when the Administration finally gets around to it, it plans a new look of sorts for our policy toward Latin America...
...William P. Lineberry recently relurned to the U.S...
...financing of hydroelectric dams, road networks and water facilities has worked mainly to ease the "hardships" facing Latin American industrialists and businessmen, these too were welcome words...
...On these scores, President Johnson lines up much more closely with the generals of Brazil and Argentina than with the democrats of Chile and Venezuela...
...It is not a police problem to be dealt with by repression...
...President Johnson could well begin putting his words into action, then, by cutting back sharply on the military assistance program, small though it is, and putting a rein on some of the U.S...
...Second," he continued, "Communism also has great ideological appeal...
...policy toward Latin America is undergoing a change...
...To those critics who have felt that U.S...
...Around this theory the Secret Army Organization was established to save France from a sell-out in Algeria...
...Johnson said most of the right things in his speech...
...As an organization of juridical equals, the OAS could restore a measure of multilateral control over the administration of the Alliance for Progress, which has degenerated from President Kennedy's original concept of "a vast cooperative endeavor" into a crude bilateral operation pitting one giver against 19 individual takers...
...Ironically again, some of the same Senate liberals who have fed the State Department ammunition to block OAS reform have themselves been urging greater emphasis on multilateral concepts in U.S...
...Unfortunately, Washington has tended toward the view that Communism in Latin America is indeed a police problem to be dealt with by repression...
...When I was in Latin America earlier this year, before the coup in Argentina, it was widely believed that both the Brazilian and the Argentine military establishments had been infected with, of all things, the "revolutionary army" doctrines of the now defunct French Secret Army Organization...
...In the debates on reorganization of the Organization of American States (OAS), for example, Washington's stress has been on peace-keeping functions while those Latin American leaders with whom Johnson wants to align himself have stressed the economic and social functions of the organization...
...Thus in Latin America Communism is also a problem of philosophy, of ideas...
...Hemispheric leaders like Frei of Chile want to convert the OAS into a full-fledged economic and social instrument, incorporating into its charter the basic principles of the Alliance for Progress and making the organization's economic and social council paramount among its activities...
...The young people in Latin America are restless and searching for answers to our problems...
Vol. 49 • October 1966 • No. 20
