La Senora de Carter Hits the Road

Latin American diplomats hardly know what to make of it all. Should they just lay on the customary round of frozen-smile receptions, exquisitely gallant introductions to dignitaries, and hurried side trips to orphanages? Or should they treat the First Lady of the U.S. as a full-fledged spokeswoman for her husband's foreign policies--which they sometimes find puzzling? "I really can't think of her talking substance," remarked one Latin American ambassador last week as Rosalynn Carter finished boning up for a two-week, 12,000-mile swing through seven countries. If Mrs. Carter does try to get down to serious business, he warned, "there well could be resentment on our part." Added a Brazilian diplomat: "You know how we feel about women."

For all the prejudices of the region's macho-minded males, however, the White House is touting Rosalynn's trip as nothing less than a major diplomatic effort at interpreting the President's Latin American policy. The point of departure in all her meetings will be her husband's Pan American Day speech in Washington in April, which emphasized human rights, economic problems and arms control as matters of top priority in Latin American diplomacy. According to Robert Pastor, the National Security Council's expert on Latin American affairs, Rosalynn should not only "convey to the Latin American governments a sense of what this Administration is all about" but also provide "a better sense of where these 'new directions' are likely to take us."

To prepare for her mission, Rosalynn sat through 13 two-hour briefings on the area's political and economic problems. She also practiced her Spanish; she knows no Portuguese, the language of the biggest country she will visit --Brazil. Mrs. Carter's itinerary takes her to four democracies (Jamaica, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Colombia) and three military dictatorships (Brazil, Peru and Ecuador) but skips such "southern cone" countries as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay, all run by rightist juntas. Whatever importance different regimes attach to her visit, she seems assured of a cordial welcome wherever she goes and a downright affectionate one in some places. A representative of Peru's leftist regime, evidently viewing her more as a tourist than a diplomat, promised her "una gran bienvenida [a great welcome]. She will see the best that we can offer, all of the great sights, and we speak from the heart."

The First Lady will leave from Brunswick, Ga., aboard an Air Force Boeing 707 appropriately dubbed "Executive First Family," which translates into the radio call sign "Executive One Foxtrot." Her first stop: Kingston, Jamaica, where U.S. diplomats hope she can somehow allay Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley's suspicions of a CIA plot to "destabilize" his regime.

Rosalynn's most ticklish problem will come next week when she arrives in Brazil for a three-day visit, the longest round of official meetings on her schedule. There she will have to defend her husband's refusal to sell an extra $50 million in arms to the rightist regime, his statements on human rights violations, and his opposition to Brazil's purchase of a nuclear power plant from West Germany. Brazilian President Ernesto Geisel has agreed to receive her with all due correctness --but may well have some pointed questions for her.

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