THE AMERICAS: Coffee, Black

Circulating in Latin American capitals last week was a gloomy report labeled “For Governments Only.” Subject: coffee. Gist of the document, drafted by an Inter-American Economic and Social Council committee: a growing surplus threatens to bring a disastrous slump in world coffee prices unless the governments concerned take drastic action.

Coffeemen already knew that a menacing surplus was piling up (TIME, June 20). What surprised them was the fact that the U.S. State Department’s representative on the committee joined the Latin experts in signing a report calling for export quotas and stockpiling to keep coffee prices from sinking through the floor. Main reason for the softening of the State Department’s longtime opposition to international coffee-price props is that coffee is, after all, Latin America’s No. 1 export. It accounts for 97% of El Salvador’s exports to the U.S., 90% of Colombia’s, more than 80% of Brazil’s and Guatemala’s, lesser but still important percentages for half a dozen other countries. A steep price fall might bring on dangerous economic and political crises, with tempting opportunities for local strongmen or Communist mischiefmakers.

Faced with that prospect, U.S. officials dealing with Latin American affairs may try to sell the Cabinet and Congress on some kind of price-support program. If so, they will have to be supersalesmen. Congress is well aware that among U.S. consumers the memory of the 1953-54 coffee-price gouge still rankles.