Neighborhood Squabble

Our rapidly rusting links with South America are an example of how even the staunchest of friendships can die of neglect. Ever since the Rio de Janiero pact of 1947, American foreign policy strategists have been too engrossed in Europe and Asia to bother with the continent beneath them. As a result, a half-dozen anti-American rulers have moved into the erstwhile Good Neighborhood, and an active hate-America campaign is under way.

For example, Chile's new president made campaign promises to cancel Chile's Mutual Security Treaty, renew diplomatic relations with Russia, and allow the country's Reds to come out of hiding. The Bolivian government, which kicked American investors out of the tin industry, told the people that American refusal to pay a "fair" price for tin is at the root of their ecomic disaster. A flood of Communist and nationalist propaganda ruined our bid for a defense treaty with Mexico. Throughout Central and South America, in fact, politicians have found that denouncing the Yanqui pays off in votes. If such a hate drive continues, we may soon be playing Britain to Latin America's Iran: we shall find government reluctance to part with vital raw material backed up by surly public opinion.

As long as the U.S. felt the Good Neighbor Policy was a self-operating mechanism needing little oil, this deterioration was bound to occur. Since the days of Sumner Welles and President Roosevelt the U.S. has ceased to be an active good neighbor. Instead of making the policy a full time job, the State Department has allowed problems to become crises before acting on them. The Secretary of State, for example, who shuttled regularly to Europe and back, visited South America only once in the last four years.

Private organizations have taken up some of the slack. From corporations have gone errant economists whose advice has won the respect of South American officials. The American Federation of Labor is helping Latin workers to organize. Most effective, perhaps, has been the Rockefeller Foundation. Converting the continent into a laboratory for disease cure and economic development projects, the Foundation has done much to counteract anti-American propaganda. But private programs have neither the authority nor the effect of an active State Department.

First of all, the Department should elevate its Latin American chief of the rank of Undersecretary of State. He would then be able to catch the President's car directly instead of working through a Secretary distracted by other problems. Whatever new programs and Undersecretary might devise would receive the attention and have the stature that they deserve.