Mobilizing the Neighbors

"The aggressive expansion of Soviet power threatens the whole world ... [We] must consider what should be done to improve the defense of this hemisphere [and] what measures we can best undertake to support and strengthen the U.N. in [Korea]." So said President Truman last week to the conference of the hemisphere's foreign ministers, assembled in Washington in response to an emergency call by Dean Acheson.*

The neighbors, one of the world's oldest international communities, seemed more interested in economics than defense. Replying on behalf of the visiting ministers, Brazil's Joao Neves da Fontoura declared bluntly that in return for their cooperation in mobilizing, the latinos wanted a better economic deal than they got in World War II. Last time, he said, the Latin American countries built up huge dollar credits. But what they wanted was U.S. goods, which the U.S. did not (or could not) allocate to them. "[Our] position," said Joao Neves tartly, "could be compared to that of Pizarro who, when he asked the Incas for food, was served only gold."

Willing to help but reluctant to sacrifice, eager to be consulted but jealous of their dignity (one foreign minister was incensed when the State Department furnished him a 1950 black Chrysler sedan instead of a Cadillac), the Latin Americans made it clear to the U.S. that they had little desire to make any major military contributions to "your war."

But the U.S. has a more hardheaded proposal. In the last war, an estimated 120,000 U.S. troops were pinned down guarding hemisphere bases. This time, the U.S. proposed that the latino republics supply the guards. To get this help, the U.S. was dangling the prospect of $80 million in aid toward arming and training Latin American forces. Listening with half an ear, the latinos busily scribbled away on some 50 different economic proposals asking mainly: 1) guaranteed fixed prices for U.S. exports and 2) highest possible prices for their raw materials.

* Made through the Organization of American States, the regional association formed in 1948 under the U.N. charter. The O.A.S. replaced the old Pan American Union, whose name was particularly distasteful for its reminder of such imperialist movements as Pan-Slavism.

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