Correspondents' Correspondence

...Israel, against a country enjoying the full support of the USSR, Syria In addition, it would compel the US to choose between Israel, an old friend, and Egypt, a nation whose friendship is being courted Needless to say, Israel does not cherish the prospect of becoming a testing ground for Moscow's policymakers Nor do Israelis consider as very helpful the U S State Department's efforts to play down both the Syrian violations of tie disengagement agreement and the ongoing massive sea- and airlift of Soviet arms and materiel to Damascus They just keep hoping President Ford will be sufficiently forceful on the Cyprus issue to cool any Soviet interest in testing his reactions in the Middle East —Eliahu Salpeter Forgetting the Bomb Tokyo—Even a slowly healing wound virtually disappears eventually, and for most individuals here the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is now hardly more than a faded scar One occasionally notices young persons at railroad stations soliciting funds for the victims of the bombings More often, one sees pamphlets by Leftists reminding the public of the atomic horrors—and calling for a halt to the nation's military buildup, the abrogation of the U S -Japan security treaty and the downfall of the Tanaka regime But these tracts seem to have little if any connection to those who actually suffered from the blasts The authors are exploiting pain for political ends, leaving the foreigner to wonder what real feelings about the bomb still remain among the Japanese Thus it was with a sense of probing some indefinable new mystery that I visited Hiroshima on August 6, 29 years to the day after the B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped its nuclear payload on an unsuspecting city The annual morning ceremony that commemorates the holocaust, attended by dignitaries in dark suits mouthing imprecations against future nuclear wars, is less than deeply moving Too stylized, too well organized, it is like a religious gathering where the significance of the rite has been buried beneath pomp and circumstance Yet, clearly, this impression is not entirely fair, for there are a few old men and women present who weep quietly Afterward, some of them told me they view the ritual as a form of relief, an outlet for their gnet (An American, if he doesn't experience a twinge of personal guilt in talking with these people, is at least self-conscious ) Nonetheless, they also criticize the politicians for using the ceremony as a forum to gam publicity Not until evening, at the "festival ot the lanterns," does one witness a genuine expression of the enduring and deep emotions felt by those who lived through the explosion Silently, aging men and women purchase small lanterns at about a dollar apiece that the vendors inscribe with the names of friends or relatives killed by the bomb Then, slowly, they walk down to the river and set the lanterns adrift in a flotilla of gently bobbing, red-glowing light To an outsider, the scene appears truly religious, a ceremony in which the symbol has not overshadowed what is being symbolized Even here, however, comments can be heard questioning the sincerity of the participants "People today do not understand," says a woman of the informally dressed families jostling for space on the river bank to watch the event "They come only to enjoy themselves, or to create propaganda " True, at least three different peace conferences are held in the city each August—one sponsored by the Japanese Socialist party, another by the Communist party and a third by the Democratic Socialists—a redundancy that is testimony to the political rather than the spiritual motives of the organizers But Hiroshima is still a center of worldwide nomdeological antinuclear activity, with thousands of Japanese and foreigners arriving every year for the sole purpose ot discussing ways to prevent nuclear proliferation In addition, Hiroshimans are currently writing more essays, poems and stones on the "meaning" of the tragedy than they ever did before The same cannot be said about the people of Nagasaki, tor in that city the bombing has had no long-range impact Perhaps the Christianity of many of the inhabitants produced a general spirit of "forgiveness " On the other hand, maybe the fact that the bomb fell on a Christian section has made it easier tor the rest ot the community to forget Whatever the reason, the statue at the site of the blast cannot compare with the peace memorial at Hiroshima, nor is the city's peace museum as elaborate A foreigner wonders sometimes if the Japanese are in the process of forgetting totally, if they are moving toward a program of nuclear armament Of course, there is nobody m the country who can give a clear-cut reply to this question, though one suspects that even the Communists and Socialists, who lead the opposition to nuclear weapons, would gradually consider "going nuclear" if they were ever to head the government—just as Communists and Socialists have done in other nations, most recently India Once Japan harnesses nuclear energy as a source of power, all remaining inhibitions about using that energy for military purposes may well fade And one real jolt—a severe threat, say, from China or the Soviet Union—could then suffice to trigger production of the nation's first nuclear "device' Only Hiroshima, it seems, lingers on as a center of meaningful dissent—a perpetual warning of the fate that may await all mankind —Donald Kirk Mexico's Agrarian Crisis Tlaxcala—After two decades of remarkable economic development, Mexico is experiencing a serious agrarian crisis that is in large part a result of the government's past overemphasis on industrialization In 1973, while the economy as a whole grew more than 7 per cent, the agricultural sector inched forward at only 1 7 per cent—about halt the annual rate of population growth And though roughly 40 per cent ot Mexico's 55 million people are directly dependent on the land and raise at least some corn, for the second consecutive year the nation must import this traditional staple of its diet Mexico remains a net food exporter, of course, but rising grocery prices are starting to hurt those city dwellers who have benefited most from the country's recent economic progress At the same time, rural campesinos are only marginally better off than they were before the Revolution a halt-century ago, and unemployment is soaring In a belated effort to correct this situation, the reform-minded regime of President Luis Echeverrfa Alvarez has begun a crash program to increase farm productivity, reversing a trend that had seen government spending on agriculture drop from 20 per cent of the national budget in 1940 to 9 per cent last year Agrarian reform reached its zenith under President Lazaro Cardenas (1936-40), who parceled out to thousands of landless peasants a claimed total of 42 million acres expropriated from large private owners (The true figure may be somewhat lower, for evidence has been uncovered of late indicating that some of the land was only "symbolically given away") This and subsequent smaller redistributions bought "political time" for the Partido Revolucionano Institucio-nal—which has won every Presidential election since its founding in 1929 The expected self-generating agricultural development failed to materialize, however, an unhappy fact that has combined with the birth rate to give Mexico more landless campesmos today (15 million, according to official statistics) than it had before the Revolution In most instances, too little land was divided among too many peasants for efficient production, and not enough attention was given to organizing agricultural cooperatives or providing irrigation and marketing facilities The scarcity of trained technicians (agronomists, veterinarians, economists, etc ) and the lack of economic resources have exacerbated these problems In addition, property boundaries were often not properly surveyed or recorded Consequently, it is estimated that more than halt of Mexico's farmland is m legal dispute or confusion, and some claims have been in litigation for as long as 50 years This has understandably discouraged agricultural investment To make matters worse, government bank credit reaches only 15 per cent of the harvest, leaving farmers at the mercy of private operators who charge interest rates as high as 25-30 per cent Even where official credit is available, the procedures and terms involved are so cumbersome that many campesinos have given up applying for it A recent study in central Mexico revealed that 80 per cent of the surveyed ejidos, as the redistributed tracts are called, have ceased to deal with government banks The agrarian crisis is particularly severe here in Tlaxcala, a small, densely populated state directly east of Mexico City Though 12-18 acres is generally considered the minimum necessary to support an average-size family m this region, 95 per cent of the farms average less than 2 5 acres Not surprisingly, about a fourth of the work force migrates to other parts of the country (and formerly to the U S as braceros) to make ends meet Campesmo unrest is high in Tlaxcala During a wave of land invasions m the late '60s, no fewer than 12 large properties were taken over in one day by land-hungry peasants Under President Echevema's new agrarian reform law, disaster areas like Tlaxcala have been declared zones of "agrarian rehabilitation" Efforts to increase agricultural productivity are being linked with the establishment of small rural socialistic enterprises by a specially created government agency For example, in the village of San Lucas Te-copilco (population 2,400), where most of the ejidos are incapable of yielding a livelihood, a metal shop simultaneously trains and employs some 70 men To allow the campesinos time to tend their fields, one group works in the mornings and another in the afternoons It was just over a year ago that sombreros were exchanged for welding visors and, under the guidance of agency officials, production began Practically on their own now, the participants have elected a workers council to make the basic operating decisions for their factorv, which manufactures metal door and window frames, cattle shutes, and roof beams The profits are channeled into a community fund that in this and region will probably be invested in irrigation Thus the interrelated problems of unemployment, manpower training, and industrial and agricultural development are all being attacked at their source To take another case, near an immense, crumbling hacienda house m San Luis Teacalco, almost 100 young men and women, using simple handmade devices, are knitting bulky sweaters Their first contract will bring each worker $145 a month—substantial wages for campesinos who often used to supplement their meager farm income by hawking newspapers, candy and cigarettes on the streets of Mexico City To carry them through several months of learning their new skill, the government has been providing "scholarships" of $1 20 a day When the sweater business reaches full production, it will help finance agricultural improvements Despite the encouraging success of these pilot projects, this model of agrarian rehabilitation is still very much m an experimental stage Many officials, moreover, are skeptical that sufficient funds for agricultural development can be generated m this fashion on the local level But given the country's shortage ot investment capital and other resources, this appears to be one of the most promising programs the government has yet devised for helping the impoverished rural populace to improve its living standards —Michael Scott...

...War by Proxy Tel Aviv-It is a very strange feeling to cover a war in which the fate of another people, not your own, is being decided,' remarked a young Israeli radio commentator from Nicosia during the first part of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July Few of his countrymen, however, view the upheaval there with much detachment Cyprus is Israel's closest non-Arab neighbor, only 150 miles away, and its ousted President, Archbishop Makanos, despite his pro-Arab and especially pro-Egyptian pronouncements, observed a fairly genuine neutrality in the Middle East The island republic maintained diplomatic relations with Israel, and economic ties as well As for the two "parent" nations in the Cyprus conflict, Turkey, though a Moslem country, similarly keeps up full ambassadorial ties with Jerusalem, whereas Greece, claiming the need to protect the tens of thousands of Greeks living in Egypt, has always held relations to the level of "diplomatic representatives " How intimately Israel is involved with Cyprus became clear on the first day of the Turkish landing After the Nicosia and Athens airports and Cyprus' airspace were closed to civilian traffic, all of the better than a dozen foreign airlines that make stops in Israel cancelled their flights The companies, whose planes are normally routed through or near Cyprus' airspace, insisted flights to Israel had become too "dangerous " The fact that most of the same airlines managed to continue flying to the Arab states via circuitous routes accentuated the unreliability of Israel's dependence on foreign carriers and the vital importance of its own national airline Indeed, El Al not only managed to keep on schedule but even added several extra flights to take care of passengers stranded by the other companies The same situation occurred in mid-August with the second Turkish offensive But this time Israeli concern over the Cyprus struggle extended well beyond the matter of air travel As Israelis see it, the renewed hostilities struck a severe blow at nato's southeastern flank, for Athens' decision to pull out of the organization's military framework suggests the U S will be excluded from Greek ports and airfields for a prolonged, if not indefinite, period This could seriously affect America's deterrent posture m the eastern Mediterranean and ultimately shift the balance of power here to the Soviet Union Cyprus also offers the Kremlin a very convenient and safe means of examining the new U S President's reactions m an international crisis What the Soviets probably want most to know is how Gerald Ford would handle a superpower confrontation Should they detect any U S weakness in a dispute between two American allies, they could be greatly tempted to try a test-by-proxy of Washington's resolve Renewed conflict in the Middle East would provide the ideal setting, for it would pit a country with U S backing...