Teamwork in Mexico

Mexico's old suspicion of gringo imperialism was fast disappearing last week in a series of spontaneous moves which were aimed at internal unity and external protection.

A formal statement from President Manuel Avila Camacho's office explained that "Mexico is actively working with the United States armed forces in maintaining control north of the Panama Canal and south of the Rio Grande." It added that Mexican air patrols are operating with U.S. patrols on the West Coast.

Mexico's Heel. To arid, lizard-like Baja (Lower) California, via Nogales, Ariz. and San Diego, Calif., went Mexican troops, moving across U.S. soil with Washington's permission. Avila Camacho, in a smart military-political stroke, named his predecessor Lazaro Cardenas chief of Mexico's land, air and naval forces on the west coast, concentrated most of his country's tidy little Navy in the Pacific. From his Senate he sought authority to open ports and bases to ships and planes of the U.S. and any American nation at war with a non-American power. (Under present arrangements belligerent ships are granted only 30 days' grace for refueling and repairs in Mexican ports.) Reasons for these elaborate, cooperative precautions were clear:

Skeleton-thin (760 mi. long, 30 to 150 mi. wide) Baja California, like the west coast of Mexico proper, has no adequate Pacific defenses. Its once bootleg-whiskey-rich northern town of Ensenada is a scant 8 1 motor miles from the U.S. naval base at San Diego. The area is extremely vulnerable, despite its deserts and mountains.

But there are potential base sites for joint U.S. -Mexican use: La Paz, offering a good, sheltered bay on the Gulf of California, with Magdalena similarly situated on the Pacific. Potentialities farther south are even more significant: The port of Salina Cruz possesses the only coastal dry dock from San Francisco to Panama, also has a fueling station. The fine harbor at Acapulco has a repair base, Guaymas a repair yard. Manzanillo is another fueling station.

Nation United. At home Avila Camacho continued to press, with obvious success, his campaign to unite the people behind the U.S. Pro-Axis sentiment waned visibly as university groups ceased heretofore open pro-Nazi activities. Liberal elements looked approvingly on General Cardenas' appointment.

The influential Confederation of Mexican Workers (C.T.M.) pledged loyalty to President Camacho's domestic and foreign policies, its executive council tentatively approving nationwide compulsory military training for Mexican workers, both male & female.

Said a Chamber of Deputies manifesto: "Let us forget our differences of other times with the United States, offering them today our loyal friendship and cooperation with their cause, which is also ours, and the cause of civilization, art and culture." Observed New York Timesman Harold Callender, from Mexico City: ". . . The nearest approach to national unity that the country has experienced since the beginning of the revolution in Francisco I. Madero's time."

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