The Hemisphere: Reacting to Crisis

The U.S. was at last paying attention to some of the critics of its Latin America policy. Last week it agreed for the first time to grant Latin American nations long-term loans, repayable in soft currencies, for such social—and visible—ends as slum clearance, schools, hospitals, and land reform. The Administration will ask Congress when it reconvenes in August for $500 million or more for loans to better the lot of the hemisphere’s peoples. The policy reverses the Eisenhower Administration’s previous insistence on hard-currency loans, to be spent mostly on U.S.-made equipment for economic enterprises.

Along with the switch of policy, the White House downgraded Roy Richard Rubottom, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, to the post of Ambassador to Argentina. During Ru-bottom’s tenure, U.S. handling of Latin American relations has consisted chiefly of making, upon the arrival of a crisis, some concession that the U.S. previously vowed not to make. Item: for years the Latin American nations that rely largely on coffee for their livelihood asked the U.S. to cooperate in some form of international control over wild price fluctuations. In January 1958 Assistant Secretary Rubottom announced that price support would be “unwieldy and unworkable”; in May Vice President Nixon was stoned in Peru and Venezuela; the following month the U.S. joined an international coffee study program. Now, in offering $500 million worth of help for social needs, the U.S. has made a similar about-face, on the heels of new fears that the influence of Nikita Khrushchev may spread across the neglected hemisphere. The trouble with this policy is that the U.S. pays the bills but its enemies get the credit for spurring it into action.

Angry at the policy shortcomings that made him the target of Latin American stones, spit and insults, Vice President Nixon tried to get rid of Rubottom when he returned from his 1958 trip. The Assistant Secretary was saved by the intervention of ‘his longtime friend Milton Eisenhower, but now Dwight Eisenhower is alarmed at the setbacks the U.S. has suffered in Latin America. One recent influence on Ike is Peru’s conservative Premier Pedro Beltran, a visitor to the White House last month, who argues that the U.S. should help meet some of Latin America’s social needs—though he agrees that Latin Americans must do more for themselves. The U.S. is preparing to grant Peru $25 million in loans for housing and land reform.

Rubottom’s successor will be Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Thomas C. Mann. He has served as embassy counselor in Guatemala and Ambassador to El Salvador. He is credited with drawing up the plan for U.S. participation in the international coffee agreement.