HEMISPHERE HYPOCRISY

...Meantime, the Argentine Navy, which knows a good thing when it sees one, and which was still rankling from its lack of importance in the Peron menage, started to muscle in on the new cabinet...

...Berle, used his influence to assist in the maneuver which last week retired that dictator, temporarily at least, to private life...

...We refused to let Argentina, one of the great food-producing nations of the world, sit in at the United Nations food conference...

...THE whole question of using pressure of any kind to insure the establishment of a friendly govern...

...The idea that we are justified in interfering in the affairs of another nation just because we do pot like its government is simply an outgrowth of our "manifest destiny" to "preserve law and order," as the first Roosevelt used to put it...

...In every Latin country the army is the home and breeding ground of reaction...

...We are outraged and indignant when the Russians try to do just that in the countries of Eastern Europe...

...Furthermore, our State Department had already had one unhappy surprise in dealing with an Army-inspired revolution in Argentina —the Rawson-Ramirez putsch which overthrew the Castillo regime in 1943...

...Governments have toppled in Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela, and it does not need a seismograph to detect the undercurrent of political turmoil in certain other countries...

...Then, in a belated effort to patch up hemispheric solidarity at San Francisco, we reversed our field and insisted that Argentina be admitted to the Conference there...

...We refused Argentina's request for an inter-American conference, and hastily whipped up one of our own at Mexico City from which Argentina was excluded...

...Instead, they pointed out that General Avalos, the revolutionists' strong-man, was a notorious fascist and declined to have anything to do with him...

...In order to cope with it we must first understand it, and that we have made singularly little effort to do...

...Yet there are certain facts that emerge clearly, and that should be examined not only from the point of view of our relations with Latin America but for the sake of our rapidly diminishing international reputation for justice and political morality...

...From my point of view it would be infinitely preferable to have a truly democratic, popularly elected government in that country, as in every other region of the world—including our own Soutnern states...

...Finally a group of Argentine Army officers took the hint, threw Peron out, forced the resignation of the entire cabinet, but kept Farrell—though his signed resignation was supposedly in the hands of the revolutionaries for use at any time...

...Braden's embarrassment, took over the government again...

...But there is apparently no end to the amount of time and effort and money (in loans and buying agreements if not in outright bribery) that we are willing to spend in our jown_hfiinisphere'for exactly the same purpose...

...Faced with this confusion, the United States press is returning to its traditional attitude that no one can be expected to explain or predict what a bunch of temperamental Latins are going to do...

...It was a stupid and unnecessary mistake, and one that has cost us untold trouble and loss of prestige...

...We hastened to recognize that "democratic" and "anti-Nazi" outfit, only to discover to our later dismay that the new government was.even worse than the old...

...In Venezuela, the new government is headed by a group of civilians who are apparently genuinely liberal and, since they have announced that they intend to leave the enormous U. S.-British oil business alone, they may be let alone themselves, although the spectre of a Venezuelan government which might expropriate the oil holdings, as Mexico did, is a perpetual nightmare to oil men and diplomats both here and in Britain...

...Instead we have spent years during which the highest officials of our Government—from the President and the Secretary of State on down—have publicly denounced and insulted the Argentine government...

...This is a fact which apparently is very hard for North Americans to accept, and I think that is because we have utterly failed to comprehend the true nature of Peron's government...

...The Argentine situation is still the State Department's biggest hemispheric headache...

...Braden agitating against the government to which he was accredited as ambassador, and with our refusal to permit the scheduled meeting of the Inter-American Conference on Peace and Security because we did not care to sit down with the Argentines...

...Peron is apparently more securely entrenched than ever, since he refused to accept any official position, contenting himself with appointing his henchmen to key jobs, and leaving himself free to run for President in the promised election...

...The record of our relations with Argentina during these last few years is one that should make any decent American blush for shame...

...After making the mistake of too-hastily recognizing the Ramirez government we tried to correct our error by withholding recognition when the personnel of the government changed slightly and Farrell, Ramirez's vice-president, took over...

...This is not to say that I like, approve of, or admire the present Argentine government...

...The Argentine government which we have tried so hard to "get" remains in power, and the very fact that Argentina has been able to stand up to our threats and pressure has gained it no little sympathy from the other Latin states...

...ment in a neighboring country is perhaps the supreme test of political morality...

...But to make a mistake and not to learn from it seems the very depth of imbecility...

...IT is high time that we stopped trying to combine the words of Good Neighborliness with the gestures of our old big stick imperialism...

...After that gesture of expediency we returned to our former policy of bullying interference, with Mr...

...Nor is it a policy which has even the pragmatic merit of having worked...

...After what is probably the shortest term of exile in history—one day—Peron returned in triumph to Buenos Aires and, to Mr...

...it has been a conspicuous failure...

...We signed an agreement with the other Latin American states this year—the Act of Chapultepec—whereby we repudiated "intervention by a state in the . . . affairs of another...

...LEAVING aside for the moment the question of whether the representative of a supposedly friendly government has any business to try to stir up a revolution, it is hard to see why anyone could even for a moment believe that a coup engineered by any South Amer ican army could be regarded as a popular and democratic uprising...

...It is a mischievous and dangerous doctrine that can only lead to fear and suspicion and hate, We fought a revolution and two world wars ostensibly for the right of peoples to g^rern themselves as they choose...

...There was a frantic effort to get a few respectable civilians as window-dressing for the new government, but the Argentine people refused to be taken in by U. S. press reports that the coup represented a victory for the forces of democracy...

...In Brazil, despite the fact that Vargas has long been cherished by our State Department as our great and good friend, it has been reliably reported that our ambassador, Mr...

...We have brushed, it aside as "Nazi," and have refused to see that, far from being an imported product, it has roots which are deep in Argentine history...

...If we can't stick to our principles for their own sake, let us at least stick to our international obligations...

...It is not a policy which enhances our moral standing vis a vis Russia and Great Britain when we discuss foreign influence in, say, Yugoslavia or Greece...

...But there is no doubt that the Farrell-Peron regime has a certain amount of support in Argentina...

...Spruille Braden [now Assistant Secretary of State] did everything (and considerably more) that an ambassador to a friendly nation could do to stir up a revolution against the Far-rell-Peron regime...

...It is scarcely a record to which we can point with pride...