Chile: Clarifying an Image

President Kennedy extended the invitation in March 1961, during his speech launching the Alliance for Progress. “We invite our friends in Latin America to contribute to the enrichment of life and culture in the United States. We need access to your music, your art.” Last week in Washington, the invitation was gladly accepted. With an evening of music and poetry, Chile opened a two-month-long “Image of Chile” program that will delve deeply into the country’s music, literature, poetry, art, theater and folkways, and bring together a rainbow of celebrities—both from the U.S. and Chile.

Ambassador in the Chorus. The man behind the image is Chilean Ambassador Sergio Gutierrez Olivos, 43, an affable, energetic lawyer who began his ambassadorial career only four years ago, with an assignment in Argentina. “This is an effort,” says Gutierrez, “to share the true, honest image of Chile—not only the cultural peaks, but also those who are coming up, the contemporary and the future. The image of Latin America is diffused in the U.S., and we wish to clarify it.”

Gutierrez went to work on his Image of Chile as soon as he arrived in Wash ington last February. He recruited performers, rounded up private companies in Chile as financial angels. Not one cent had to come from the Chilean or U.S. governments. Meantime, the ambassador’s wife sent out 15,000 invitations to universities, cultural groups, government and diplomatic officials.

On opening night last week, some 300 people packed the West Auditorium in the Department of State building. First came a brief speech by Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz and an introduc tion by Ambassador Gutierrez. Then Conductor Leonard Bernstein of the New York Philharmonic introduced his pert blonde wife, Felicia Montealegre, a onetime Chilean actress. In English and Spanish, she recited from Chilean Bards Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, which left several of the ladies—and Bernstein—misty-eyed.

Next came a concert of 18th century Chilean music, played by the Ancient Music Group of Chile’s Catholic University. From the auditorium, dozens of people went on to the Chilean embassy for a Chilean-style hootenanny, with Gutierrez joining in the chorus.

In Word, Picture & Song. The ambitious programs to come include a photo exhibition of Chile’s beautiful Andean landscape and its handsome people, recitals by Chile’s brilliant young cellist, Edgar Fischer, its famed Pianist Claudio Arrau and two of his most promising students, Mario Miranda and Alfonso Montecino. As the month goes on, Chile’s writers will meet their U.S. con temporaries for panel discussions of the Chilean novel, featuring Sometime Critic Arthur Schlesinger, and theater, featuring Director Jose Quintero. Washington will be invited to a folklore program of song and dance; and Washington’s Howard University will put on an exhibition of Chilean art drawn from Santiago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and Manhattan’s Museum of Mod ern Art.

Added up, the two-month program would surely do much to brighten the Chilean image.