The Presidency: More Than Good Neighbors

It would be pleasant if the U.S., as a major power in a complicated age, could present to the world a well-rounded entity known as “foreign policy.” But foreign policy can, in fact, consist only of the sum of many disparate parts. The U.S. must deal in special, separate ways with every other country and area in the world, and it is the heavy burden of the nation’s President to ensure that the parts make a whole.

Thus, it was as necessary last week that President John Kennedy should caution India’s Prime Minister Nehru against taking military action against the insignificant Portuguese enclave of Goa as that he should intervene personally in an attempt to mediate in the explosive Congo (see THE WORLD). And it seemed important that he should go ahead with a largely ceremonial visit to Latin America, even though he had been warned that it might be dangerous. For ceremony is the visible side of policy, and the U.S. would have suffered a serious setback if the President had reneged on his commitments.

“Uncle Kennedy.” The trip’s first stop was Puerto Rico, where Governor Luis Mufioz Marin had given schoolchildren the day off and issued a proclamation calling on all citizens to “celebrate with joy.” Lining the observation decks at San Juan airport, a flag-waving crowd of 5,000 roared as the President, followed by Jackie in a white wool coat, stepped from the plane,, “Puerto Rico,” he said into the inevitable microphones, “serves as an admirable bridge between Latin America and North America. You have served to make it easier for us to understand each other.” Along the ten-mile route into San Juan, 200,000 lined the streets to cheer, toss streamers and shower confetti. Proclaimed the banners: “Welcome, Uncle Kennedy.”

That evening, while San Juan residents went to street concerts and free ballets as part of the celebration, the Kennedys attended a dinner at the Governor’s marbled La Fortaleza palace, with its trickling fountains, croaking tree frogs and nightblooming hibiscus, on the moonlit Bay of San Juan. Before dinner, in one more demonstration of a President’s ceaseless attention to foreign policy’s disparate parts, Kennedy summoned to his room John Calvin Hill, U.S. consul general in Santo Domingo. Hill, flown to Puerto Rico for the occasion, spent an hour talking to Kennedy about the Dominican Republic’s continuing unrest, was ordered back to Santo Domingo on the double at the briefing’s end. The Kennedys slept the night in the La Fortaleza palace, and next morning the President rose early for breakfast with Munoz Marin. He got a realistic political briefing from an experienced Caribbean statesman about leftist, anti-U.S. activity in Latin America—particularly including Venezuela.

As it happened, Venezuela was the President’s next stopping point. He had scheduled the visit as a gesture of reciprocal friendship with Venezuela’s staunchly pro-American President Romulo Betancourt. But Venezuela is where Vice President Richard Nixon was attacked by mobs in 1958, and in the days before Kennedy’s trip, Caracas leftists again erupted in violent protest. Confronted by the prospect of trouble, both the U.S. and Venezuelan governments took extreme security precautions.

U.S. security agents went to Venezuela by the score. The U.S. cruiser Northampton was ordered to stand by off Caracas, ostensibly as a communications ship but actually loaded with a detachment of U.S. marines. On his part, Betancourt ordered a roundup of known agitators; some 2,000 were collared and tossed into jail for the period of the Kennedy visit. Betancourt also ordered that thousands of Caracas cops and Venezuelan army troops be posted along the Kennedys’ route into Caracas from the airport.

The way things turned out, most of the precautions seemed superfluous. Intermittent rain was falling at Caracas’ Maiquetia Airport when the Kennedys arrived. They had to huddle with President and Mrs. Betancourt under big blue umbrellas. “I am proud to be the first U.S. President to visit here,” said Kennedy to a crowd of 300—all meticulously screened before they were allowed on the airport premises. Responded Betancourt: “The case today is one of a United States President who is rectifying a long period of ignorance and lack of comprehension of the problems of Latin America.”

The schedule took the Kennedys on a 25-mile drive from Maiquetia Airport through Caracas to La Carlota airport, where helicopters took the party to an Alliance for Progress ceremony in a Venezuelan village. Between the airports, the crowds were small but well-behaved. In Caracas itself, the motorcade rolled unmolested down Avenida Sucre, where Nixon’s limousine had been stopped, stoned and spat upon.

In the village of La Morita, 2,000 shirt-sleeved peasants and their families awaited the Kennedys. The Venezuelan government is building farm homes for these campesinos. The Betancourts and the Kennedys drove up to the project, where 87 units have already been constructed, and in symbolic ceremony, each of the Betancourts and Kennedys presented a land title to a campesino. Then, in a speech translated sentence by sentence, President Kennedy said: “We will be more than good neighbors. We will be partners in building a better life for our peoples.” Jacqueline Kennedy also made a speech, but she needed no interpreter. “No fathers or mothers can be happy until they have the possibility of jobs and education for their children,” she told the campesinos in schoolbook Spanish. “This must be for all and not just for a fortunate few.” The peasants gave her the day’s loudest cheers.

Solidarity and Safety. After spending the night in Los Núñez, the Venezuelan version of the White House, the Kennedys planned to jet off for Bogotá, where the President would confer with Colombia’s President Alberto Lleras Camargo, another good South American friend of the U.S. As it was originally conceived. President Kennedy’s trip to Latin America had been seen as a ritualistic way for the U.S. to demonstrate the importance it places on hemispheric solidarity. Then, after the commitments were made, came the deep worries about the physical safety of John and Jacqueline Kennedy. Security precautions were therefore heaped one atop another.

But as the hours passed in Venezuela, it became increasingly apparent that the President’s visit was more a schmalzfest than a bold adventure. “I’ve heard more boos in Boston.” said a presidential aide. The President arrived at no momentous decisions. He went through a great many ceremonial routines. In so doing, he gave visible evidence of the regard which the U.S. holds for its Latin American neighbors. And he successfully contributed to the sum of the whole that is U.S. “foreign policy.”