One Step Forward, One Back

In letter No. 719 to the Organization of American States last week, U.S. Ambassador Philip W. Bonsai formally announced to Latin America that the Alliance for Progress was now in business. With assurance of a $600 million starter from Congress, the U.S. has called a meeting of the OAS Inter-American Economic and Social Council to start concrete work "in all key areas of economic and social betterment." The meeting, to begin July 15, will probably be held at the exclusive Cantegril Country Club at Punta del Este, a Uruguayan beach resort 60 miles east of Montevideo, and President Kennedy may fly down for the opening.

No Complaints. The reaction from the hemisphere spokesmen has been immediate, strong and favorable. For the first time since the Cuban invasion, the Mexican government let it be known that it was "100% in accord with Kennedy." Chile's conservative President Jorge Alessandri was openly enthusiastic about the promised "thoroughgoing social reform," and Argentina's Arturo Frondizi said that "there can be no social development without economic development." All these were promising signs for Latin America's long-term good, but if the U.S. expected any immediate dividends from its diplomatic attempts to retrieve the Cuban disaster, it got a sharp setback. For weeks Washington has been working feverishly to line up hemisphere support for an emergency meeting of the OAS Foreign Ministers to deal with Castro. But last week Ecuador's Foreign Minister Jose Chiriboga, a strong proponent of collective OAS punitive action, was forced to resign under pressure from President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra, who is busily courting Castro these days.

No Posse. Worse yet was Brazil, now run by the mercurial Janio Quadros, who is four months older than Kennedy. Over the past fortnight. Foreign Minister Afonso Arinos has taken an increasingly hard line on Cuba, announced that Brazil would support in principle an OAS meeting and would be forced to break with Cuba if it proved to be overtly Communist.

Last week Quadros proclaimed his own Cuban policy, and though it was as Delphian as many of his remarks, it obviously suggested that he was not joining any hunt-Castro posse. Said Quadros: "Brazil is opposed to any foreign intervention, direct or indirect, to impose on Cuba any given form of government. The principle of nonintervention applies even with respect to adoption of a system of representative government, a system that Brazil prefers, recommends and practices as the best for the Americas." By intervention, said Quadros, he meant diplomatic, economic, military, or even ideological. "Brazil will defend the Cuban people's right to self-determination."

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