Alliance for Urgency

As Lyndon Johnson strode into a huge reception in the San Rafael Hotel on the final night of the historic Punta del Este conference of hemisphere chiefs, Latin American leaders surrounded him and embraced him in one passionate abrazo after another. When they finally turned him loose, their wives besieged him for autographs. "This has been so beautiful," sighed Brazil's President Arthur da Costa e Silva. Said Mexico's Gustavo Diaz Ordaz: "President Johnson is showing heart for Latin America."

The Punta del Este meeting was undeniably a personal triumph for Lyndon Johnson, who had seized on and promoted the idea for a conference that would open a new era of Latin American economic cooperation. It was Johnson's first trip ever to South America and his first opportunity to meet Latin American Presidents, many of whom had been prepared to dislike him. But Johnson proved far more charming and disarming, far more simpatico than most of them had expected--and they were won over. Even more important, the U.S. President sounded a clarion call that none of them could resist: "Let us declare the next ten years the Decade of Urgency."

Hitting Home. The good will that permeated the conference was all the more unusual because Johnson came south with surprisingly little in his pockets to give the Latin Americans. Unlike the original Alliance for Progress, with its main stress on U.S. aid combined with land and tax reforms in Latin America, Johnson's new program rested chiefly on increased trade and Latin American selfhelp. "I represent a nation committed by history, by national interest and by simple friendship to the cause of progress in Latin America," Johnson told his fellow Presidents. "But the assistance of my nation will only be useful as it reinforces your determination and builds on your achievements."

Only a few years ago, such a blunt statement would have sent many Latin Americans into bursts of outrage about Yanqui callousness--and Ecuador's interim President, Otto Arosemena Gomez, 41, indeed complained that the U.S. did not offer enough aid. But for the rest of the Latin Americans, who vainly tried to shush Arosemena, Johnson's words hit home. After receiving $9.9 billion in Alliance aid during the past six years, the Latin Americans are beginning to realize that aid alone will not make their problems go away. They are also experiencing a new surge of independence, confident that they can progress without relying quite so heavily on U.S. aid. Said Chile's President, Eduardo Frei: "Our people know that they are poor in a rich continent." Added Mexico's Diaz Ordaz: "It is our effort, our imagination and our resources that must carry out the task of economic integration."

Six-Point Attack. Around the big circular table in a converted gambling casino at Punta del Este, 19 Presidents affixed their signatures to a 10,000-word, red-leather-bound declaration that is aimed at helping Latin American countries solve in unison their cen turies-old problems of illiteracy, poverty and narrow sectionalism. With the sole exception of Arosemena, the Presidents decided on a six-point attack to:

> Establish a common market that will ultimately unite Latin America from Mexico to Argentina in one huge free-trade zone. Under the plan, the Latin American Common Market will begin operation in 1970, gradually lower tariffs until by 1985 goods will flow unimpeded throughout the entire area. As a companion piece, the Presidents also intend to establish a Latin American stock market so that people in one country can easily invest in enterprises in other countries.

> Build more roads from country to country, improve harbors and construct new satellite-using telecommunications systems to enable Latin Americans to travel, trade and talk more readily among themselves.

>Pressure the industrialized nations, through the good offices of the U.S., to grant trade concessions to the Latin American countries so that their main exports--coffee, sugar and copper--will no longer be adversely affected by wild fluctuations in world markets.

> Modernize farms so that Latin America will finally be able to feed its 243 million inhabitants and thus no longer be in the unhappy position of having to spend precious foreign exchange on food imports.

>Improve health, educational and scientific-training facilities throughout the hemisphere, with strong emphasis on programs that will wipe out contagious diseases and teach Latin Americans the basic skills required for industrial jobs.

>Eliminate unnecessary Latin American military spending on such costly prestige items as aircraft carriers and supersonic fighter planes in favor of buying cheaper counterinsurgency weaponry such as automatic rifles and armed helicopters.

It was an ambitious program, and Johnson made clear that the U.S. will do what it can to lend both aid and encouragement. He hopes to boost Alliance for Progress funds, which now amount to about $1.2 billion a year, by another $300 million annually for the next five years--but he made no major commitments at the conference. In fact, he extended only five offers: a pledge to finance a Latin American satellite-communications system, a promise to try to persuade the industrialized countries to grant trade concessions to less developed countries, a commitment to try to "untie" some U.S. aid funds so that the money can be spent for Latin American-made goods rather than in the U.S., an offer to apply U.S. technology to a wide range of Latin American problems, and a proposal to establish Alliance for Progress centers at U.S. colleges and universities to encourage interest in Latin America.

No Chandelier. Johnson's main contribution to the conference, as it turned out, was his ability to make the Presidents feel that he --and the U.S.--really understood their problems and wanted to help. That was no mean feat at Punta del Este, where Johnson was a very big fish in a very small pool. Employing the strictest security precautions in its history, Uruguay cordoned off the peninsula with 1,000 police and 600 soldiers, who allowed only accredited newsmen and diplomats to pass roadblocks. Guards stood on rooftops with high-powered rifles and studied the surroundings through binoculars. Security agents monitored each of Punta del Este's 4,000 telephone lines for any hint of possible assassination plots.

A five-man Uruguayan guard was assigned to each President in addition to the security forces that each head of state brought with him; Brazil's Costa e Silva brought a 20-man detachment, Argentina's Juan Ongania twelve men. Johnson, of course, outdid them all. Scores of Secret Service men moved through the grounds around Beaulieu, the Johnson residence, chattering into walkie-talkies about the whereabouts of "Volunteer," the code name for Johnson. Whenever he moved, they literally shielded him with a wall of bodies; they even decided to remove the 1,430-lb. chandelier that hung over the conference table around which Johnson and the other Presidents would sit. Offshore was anchored the helicopter carrier U.S.S. Wright, whose communications room contained the hot line to the Kremlin just in case some international crisis arose during which Johnson might want to talk with the Soviet leaders.

Just to Listen. The strict security arrangements kept Johnson from mingling with Latin Americans and pressing the flesh, but he made up for that in his private sessions with the Presidents. His face burnished copper by the warm Uruguayan sun, he sat in a lounge chair on the lawn of his seaside villa and, between formal summit sessions, received a steady procession of Latin American leaders in arm-gripping, rib-punching, face-to-face talks. "I'm not here to say 'You do that and you do this,'" Johnson told the Presidents. "I'm just here to listen." When he did speak, he was well informed; he had already talked with Latin American ambassadors to Washington when they visited his Texas ranch, had sent Secretary of State Dean Rusk on ahead to Punta del Este to bone up on problems.

Colombia's Carlos Lleras Restrepo, for instance, was flattered to find that he was able to talk for 35 of the 45 minutes of his meeting with Johnson about Latin America's unfavorable position in world trade (its share of the world market has slipped from 8.6% to 5.9% in the past ten years) and the instability of world coffee prices. Mexico's Diaz Ordaz, one of the few Latin American leaders whom Johnson had previously met, had an 80-minute talk about increasing agricultural output; before the talk was over, Johnson had scraped his chair close to Diaz Ordaz and was thumping him on the arm to emphasize points.

Sensing that he might have trouble over oil with Venezuela's Raul Leoni, Johnson jumped into his Cadillac and went calling. He listened for 75 minutes as Leoni complained about how the U.S. program against air pollution might affect exports of Venezuelan oil because much of the oil is low-grade and has a high sulfur content, which is a prime pollutant. Johnson told Leoni that U.S. scientists were experimenting with refining methods that would reduce sulfur content and that any discoveries would be passed on to Venezuela. Back at Beaulieu, Johnson heard Peru's visionary Fernando Belaunde Terry tell how the Indians of the High Andes are building 1,500 miles of roads to open the interior of Peru to trade for the first time since the Incan Empire succumbed to the onslaught of the Spanish conquistadors 435 years ago. As the Presidents told how they were coping with their problems, Johnson would say: "You do that, and we will walk by your side all the way."

After signing the Declaration of the Presidents, Johnson boarded Air Force One for his Texas ranch. Said he: "I return to my country in good heart."

As he had learned, Latin America has never in its history been ruled by so many intelligent, reasonable men. And never before has it evinced such a spirit of common purpose.

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