Forthright Visitor

Uruguay's Luis Batlle Berres, as a onetime journalist and present President of a country where free speech is proudly maintained, is a man who likes plain talk.

Last week, as he moved through the maze of flowery welcomes and formal functions that are the lot of leaders of friendly nations on state visits to the U.S., Batlle Berres found time to do a bit of plain talking.

At a meeting of the Council of the Organization of American States held in his honor, he sharply warned against "flooding" Latin America with surplus products, saying that it would be "ruinous to the health" of that area. Although he did not mention the U.S. by name, it was a clear reference to the recent sale of U.S. surplus wheat to Brazil. Said he, "The offer of those raw materials for soft or local currencies on long-payment terms is ...

certainly neither an orderly nor a peaceful course of action." Before leaving Washington for Manhattan, Batlle Berres suggested that his country deserved more attention than it was getting in the U.S. "I am not saying that Uruguay has been forgotten here," he said in an interview. "We understand the preoccupation of the U.S. with the great central problems of our time. In these circumstances, a country without great problems does not command attention." But, he went on to say in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly, "if it were not for the smaller countries, the great powers would now be fighting." Batlle Berres did not mean to be rude to his hosts. At dinner one night with U.S.

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, he apologized for his forthrightness, but explained that he did so because he was used to speaking freely for his country, and because he was talking "in this country where freedom of speech is also respected." Dulles replied that Batlle Berres--frank comments were welcome.

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