Common Concern

The Secretary of State of the U.S. last week placed his great authority behind Assistant Secretary of State Spruille Braden's aggressive Latin-American policy.

In Washington, Secretary Byrnes affirmed the Braden doctrine that the hemispheric principle of non-intervention should not shield violators of the elementary rights of man. He also accepted Uruguayan Foreign Minister Alberto Rodriguez Larreta's ringing proposal that the American republics take joint action against oppressive regimes in their midst (TIME, Dec. 3).

Secretary Byrnes also declared that any violation of human rights is "a matter of common concern to all the republics. As such it justifies collective multilateral action after full consultation among the republics in accordance with established procedures."

Some suspected that the Uruguayan note had originated in Spruille Braden's office. They were wrong. But the U.S. State Department was going all out to line up the lesser republics behind a forthright policy of intervention when & where intervention seemed necessary.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.