The Dialogue Begins

Once in May and again in August, the conference had to be postponed because of the flaring civil war in the Dominican Republic. Now at last 800 delegates from 19 nations converged on Rio's ancient Hotel Gloria for the Second Special Inter-American Conference of the Organization of American States. The object was to assess the role of the 17-year-old OAS in a rapidly changing hemisphere. And that was something that badly needed doing. "There are several Pandora's boxes here," said an OAS official, "any one of which contains vast numbers of insects."

In 1948, when it was chartered in its present form, the OAS was envisioned as a regional United Nations that would provide mutual defense, promote economic development and knit the hemisphere together into a tight community. Performance has fallen short of promise, and history is quickly passing the OAS by. Castro-Communist guerrillas are striking at half a dozen nations, inter-American trade is lagging, population pressures are mounting, and peasant masses are clamoring for social and political change. In all this, the OAS remains relatively powerless to act or even serve as a catalyst in the formation of a joint hemisphere-wide policy.

Not Since 1954. As the key political organ of the OAS, the Inter-American Conference of Foreign Ministers is supposed to meet once every five years to lay down OAS policy and give direction to the Council of OAS Ambassadors, which meets twice monthly in Washington. The foreign ministers have not met at all since 1954, except for one-shot meetings on such urgent matters as applying sanctions against Castro's Cuba. Among other reforms, Jose A. Mora, the able Uruguayan lawyer who serves as OAS Secretary-General, wants a meeting of foreign ministers at least once a year. "I cannot say that such a meeting might have foreseen or prevented the Dominican crisis," Mora said. "However, had the system provided for an annual conference, the resulting exchange of information would have made for greater awareness and understanding of the impending danger."

As part of the OAS peace-keeping machinery, delegates will also discuss organizing a permanent Inter-American Peace Force, on the order of the temporary force now in the Dominican Republic. Brazil's President Humberto Castello Branco made no secret of his views. "We must acknowledge," he told delegates, "the inanity of our wanting collective protection and action without first creating effective machinery for collective decision-making and joint action." This is likely to stir a storm of protest from such ardent defenders of nonintervention as Mexico and Chile.

"A fall in the price of copper or coffee," said Chilean OAS Ambassador Alejandro Magnet, "is more serious for our countries than Communist subversion."

Venezuela, too, is firmly against intervention--though it wasn't saying much last week, having boycotted the conference in protest against Brazil's revolutionary military government.

Treading Softly. Even if everyone were to agree on some sort of OAS peace force, the mechanism for enacting this or any other reform is slow and cumbersome. It might require charter revision, and that would mean another conference to vote on the final amend ments. Once the revisions are voted, the amended charter must then go to the various national Parliaments for ratification. "That takes years," moaned one diplomat. Not until last week did the Brazilian Congress finally ratify the 1948 Bogota Pact, providing for the peaceful settlement of disputes. And it was only the tenth nation to do so.

Last week the U.S. was still treading softly in the wake of the Dominican crisis, trying to establish what Secretary of State Dean Rusk and U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon like to call "a friendly consensus." The real work of the meeting will come in private talks among foreign ministers or jefe a jefe (chief to chief). Over cups of Brazilian cafezinho, the U.S. hopes only to reach a broad agreement that will pave the way for a more productive second conference, possibly next spring. The important thing was that a high-level dialogue had at last begun.

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