Dear Time Reader:

Every day the mail brings evidence that the four-day Inter-American Investment Conference, opening in New Orleans Feb. 28 under TIME'S cosponsorship, is going to be one of the important international economic events of 1955. More than 500 businessmen are coming, including representatives from 22 countries, ranging from eight from Paraguay to more than 50 each from Cuba and Venezuela. We are naturally pleased that business leaders of the Americas are taking this chance to get together and discuss problems and prospects for more U.S. private investment in Latin America.

I am certain that they will not be disappointed in the program being arranged for them. The conference will open with a welcoming address by President Eisenhower, speaking over a closed television circuit from the White House. The keynote speeches will be given by Eugenio Mendoza of Venezuela and Harold McClellan, chairman of the board of the National Association of Manufacturers. Other speakers from the U.S. will be: Eric Johnston, chairman of the International Development Advisory Board; Harvey S. Firestone Jr.; Dr. Milton Eisenhower; Eugene Black, president of the World Bank; General Glen Edgerton, president of the Export-Import Bank; James D. Mooney, former executive vice president of General Motors; and TIME'S Editor-in-Chief Henry R. Luce.

Among those from Latin America who will talk are: Carlos Davila, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States; Martin del Corral, director of the Banco de la Republica; Eduardo Suarez, former Secretary of Finance of Mexico; and Luis Roberto Vidigal, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the state of Sao Paulo.

At general sessions of the conference there will also be panel programs on topics of specific interest. One panel group, headed by Peter Grace, president of W. R. Grace & Co., will take up previous investment experience in Latin America. Another panel, headed by Professor Stanley Surrey of Harvard, will discuss tax factors affecting Latin-American investment.

A third panel will devote its time to "The Atomic Horizon in Latin America." Chairman of this group will be Walker Cisler, president of the Detroit Edison Co. and a real private-enterprise pioneer in the field of commercial atomic power. Others on this panel will be: former AECommissioner Eugene Zuckert (who will talk on atomic energy as a new potential for investment); William P. Gage, president of Grace Chemical Co. (who will speak on atomic energy and agriculture); J. Carlton Ward Jr., president of Vitro Corp. of America, and A. C. Monteith, a vice president of Westinghouse Electric Corp. (who will go into the subject of industrial applications of atomic energy). Professor Joaqqim Costa Ribeiro, scientific director of Brazil's National Research Council, will discuss the opportunities for commercial development of atomic energy in Latin America.

Of course the heartbeat of the conference will be the daily private meetings where the businessmen of the Americas will get down to the brass tacks of specific investment propositions. To date, outlines and proposals for more than 150 projects have been received. The range of these projects covers practically the entire investment field from agricultural development and consumer-goods manufacturing to mortgage and finance companies, steel mills, new construction and industrial development.

In discussing and exploring these investment possibilities, both those who propose and those who invest will be doing so as private businessmen, not as representatives of their governments.

And in this atmosphere of enterprise, the New Orleans experiment is going to be an interesting one to watch.

Cordially yours,

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