Sudden Flip-Flop

Hitler's sweep through France did more to make Mexico see eye to eye with Washington than years of diplomatic talk. Last week as Nazis goose-stepped in Paris, the Mexican Government, which has played with or tolerated every ism in the atlas in the past few years, suddenly decided that it had better get in step with the Colossus of the North, if & when the Colossus decides what it is going to do.

First indication that the Government had decided to clean out Nazi agitators, Communist revolutionaries, fomenters of continental unrest and political troublemakers in general came when Secretary of Interior Ignacio Garcia Tellez called a meeting of Mexican publishers and editors to inform them that Mexico's foreign policy was strictly pro-Allies, pro-U. S. To emphasize publicly that his sympathies were with the democracies, President General Lazaro Cardenas sent a telegram to France's President Albert Lebrun expressing the "painful impression" created by the Italian declaration of war.

Exit Dietrich. Two days later Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Hay informed Hitler's slick director of Nazi intrigue in Mexico and Latin America, Arthur Dietrich, that he was no longer persona grata in Mexico, that his activities, pursued with arrogant disregard for the laws and privileges of his host country, were "prejudicial to Mexican interests." An investigation of Dietrich had revealed that his office served as a relay point for instructions from Berlin to Nazi agents in the U. S., as well as elsewhere in the Americas, including plenty of boring from within in Mexico. Awaiting further instructions from Berlin, Dietrich and his staff of 30 Nazis hoped to set up headquarters in another Latin-American country, perhaps Guatemala, where 34 additional agents en route to the Americas on the Japanese steamer Asama Mam might join them.

Boss Dietrich's headquarters, a house in Calle de Viena equipped with linotype machines and printing presses, was closed.

The violently anti-U. S. weekly Timon, financed by him, folded up, and Theodore Schuhmacher, the publisher of a new Nazi propaganda daily, Diario Aleman, went into hiding. In his first number Nazi Schuhmacher had urged Mexico to join Germany against the U. S., promising her the Southwest and California as spoils--as in 1917.

Ideological Flip-Flop. Greatest surprise of all came when Vicente Lombardo Toledano, vociferous tsar of the Communistic C. T. M. (Confederation de Trabajadores de Mexico), suddenly did a complete ideological flip-flop and, after denouncing gringo imperialism a week before, suddenly turned prodemocratic. Addressing the important Latin-American Confederation of Labor, he left his audience goggle-eyed with surprise by declaring, "There was never truer friendship between North American and Latin-American peoples. We Mexicans feel great current cordiality, sympathy and profound friendship uniting us. We must fight fascism to the death and preserve democracy." Amused at his sudden conversion, the Mexican press dubbed it his "new testament." Observers wondered to what extent this change of heart reflected the always queer relations of Moscow and Berlin.

General Rafael Sanchez Tapia, oldtime friend of President Cardenas and himself an independent candidate for president, took advantage of the general about-face to try to make a little hay for the Cardenas Party. Proposing that Mexico immediately negotiate a comprehensive political-economic-military defense pact with the U. S., he also suggested that the Government candidate for President, General Manuel Avila Camacho, and his chief opponent, General Juan Andreu Almazan, join him in withdrawing their candidacies, thus leaving President Cardenas in office for the duration of the "world danger." Unable to keep pace with Mexican politics, bewildered students in Mexico City put on a pointless series of riots. And at Hermosilla pre-flip-floppists took another shot at Candidate Almazan.

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