New Muscle in Arms

When the Alliance for Progress was started in 1961, the Kennedy Administration decided that one way to help Latin America economically would be to sell it fewer costly weapons. As Lyndon Johnson later said, to sell supersonic jets to Brazilian and Argentinian generals would be to "take clothes off the backs and food from the stomachs and education away from the minds of [Latin American] children."

Almost unnoticed, the Nixon Administration has reversed that policy. In a move recently announced, the President waived the U.S.'s self-imposed $75 million-a-year limit on arms sales to Latin America and asked Congress to raise it to $150 million.

Still, the turnabout was not total. Sales of costly and particularly sophisticated items like McDonnell-Douglas' $4,000,000 Phantom jet are still embargoed. In addition, Congress may be reluctant to approve the sale of eight Lockheed antisubmarine planes to Brazil because they might be used to apprehend U.S. fishing vessels inside the 200-mile territorial limit just proclaimed by the Brazilian government. But Administration staffers have made clear that were it not for fear of an explosive reaction in Congress, the arms lid would be off altogether. Meanwhile Latin American countries can buy most basic U.S. military equipment, including trucks, radio gear and small arms.

High Prices, Low Scruples. Partly because Lockheed and other salesmen showed up in Brazil and other countries as soon as the U.S. decision was made, the policy reversal looked like a phase of Nixon's campaign to bail out the beleaguered U.S. aerospace industry.

The industry has been hit by layoffs, slumping orders and a threatened collapse of Lockheed unless Congress approves federal loan guarantees, as the Administration has requested. Some Latin Americans, however, saw Washington's move as a typical capitalist plot. The U.S., charged Chile's Marxist President Salvador Allende, was out to "unleash an arms race" in Latin America. That did not, of course, keep Allende from accepting $5 million worth of U.S. State Department military-assistance credit last week for Chile's own armed forces. The money will be used to buy a Lockheed C-130 transport aircraft and paratroop gear.

French Courtiers. In fact, as Allende should have added, the arms race never stopped. While the U.S. continued to supply workaday items like Ford and General Motors trucks, hard-selling Europeans were buzzing around the continent with irresistible offers of high-priced hardware with low, low credit rates and scruples to match. A confidential Commerce Department study completed this spring snowed that the U.S. had "lost" more than $1 billion in arms sales to Latin America over the past decade--to the detriment of the long-suffering U.S. balance of payments. The Nixon Administration is also worried about losing influence with Latin America's military-dominated regimes. White House officials are particularly concerned about the political clout that some European countries, notably France, have gained in Latin America through arms sales.

Arms manufacturers from Britain, Italy, West Germany and Sweden have all found friends and profits in Latin America. Even The Netherlands has picked up a piece of the action; it sold Argentina a reconditioned aircraft carrier for $3,000,000. Nobody, however, has come on with anything like the zeal of the French, who trebled their arms exports last year.

With worldwide sales of $1.3 billion in 1970, France surpassed Britain ($480 million) as a Western exporter of military hardware and now stands second to the U.S. ($2 billion). Arms and other military goods account for 8% of France's total exports, and a good share of its balance of payments surplus. In Latin America, ubiquitous French military attaches court Latin generals with all-expense junkets to the Paris Air Show and Latin treasurers with temptingly low interest rates (when available, U.S. Government loans carry a minimum 51% rate). Arms sales agreements have been made or are being negotiated between France and Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

By far the hottest item in the French arms catalogue is Dassault's 1,500-m.p.h. Mirage fighter. Last year alone, Dassault took orders for 18 of the $3,000,000 planes from Colombia, 16 from Brazil, five from Peru and the first twelve of a total order of about 90 from Argentina. Total price: $627 million. Orders like that have made the company's chief, Marcel Dassault, the richest man in France. Dassault, 79, who has been designing planes and parts since he put together propellers for World War I aircraft, is worth perhaps $1 billion.

After the Mirage. There is an almost ludicrous, keeping-up-with-the-G6-mezes aspect to the competition for even faster and deadlier weapons. Partly because Argentina bought a French tank production line from Direction Technique des Armaments Terrestres that is building 15-ton AMX-13s, Brazil bought an entire Macchi aircraft assembly line from Italy and will begin producing its own trainer and tactical attack aircraft in October. The planes can be used to repel tanks. Because Chile has bought nine new Hawker Hunter jets from Britain, neighboring Argentina is looking for a British Marconi radar air-defense system--and so is Brazil, which gets along with neither country.

Apologists for such thinking like to point out that the region as a whole spends just under 2% of its G.N.P. on things military--less than any other area of the world. Considering the severe social shortcomings of most Latin American countries, however, even that is too much. Brazil, whose real enemies are poverty and ignorance, devotes 12% of its federal budget to the military and only 7% to education. Since 1967, Brazil has paid out nearly $500 million for, among other things, a squadron of 16 Mirages (for $70 million), 112 Italian Macchi jet trainers (another $70 million), six British Vosper-Thorneycroft frigates ($240 million) and two Vickers submarines ($40 million).

The arms race could lead not only to distorted social priorities but also possibly to a shooting war. Only a few weeks ago, a World War H-vintage Venezuelan North American B-25 bomber fired on a pair of U.S. Bell Huey helicopters that were mapping the Guajira frontier between Colombia and Venezuela, where oil exploration is under way. In part because Caracas fears that Bogota might bring its shiny new French-made Mirages into the argument, the Venezuelans have increased their oil taxes--to the great displeasure of the U.S. oil companies there--and announced plans to spend $35.5 million of the extra money on a jet squadron. That will make Venezuela the sixth and --considering the cost--possibly the last Latin American country to acquire supersonic jets. And then? Nowadays, as one foreign military attache in Rio points out, everyone in Europe is pushing missiles.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.