Reds on the Run?

In hushed Bogota, the delegates to the International Conference of American States were ready to talk seriously. Fresh in their minds was the Commie-aided insurrection which had blasted them out of Bogota's Capitolio, endangered their lives, killed 1,200 Colombians. Owlish Colombian Foreign Minister Zuleta Angel rose quietly. "We will now consider the question of democracy in the Americas," he said.

The U.S., along with Chile, Brazil and Peru, had taken the lead in calling for common defense against international Communism. No nation opposed the resolution last week, but Mexico, Venezuela and Guatemala wanted it broadened to include all totalitarianism. Said Venezuela's Romulo Betancourt: "Because Communist ideas inspire against peace and security we support the resolution, but we also want to condemn the existence of other types of dictatorships which are an equal menace."

Flank Protected. Next day the steering committee was back with a reworded resolution, condemning all forms of totalitarianism. Five minutes after it was presented, the resolution was unanimously approved.

U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall could now feel that a real move had been made toward securing the U.S.'s southern flank. Now he could--and must--turn back to a Western Europe that faced Russia on much closer terms. The following afternoon he stood up abruptly. "I have to return to Washington," he said; ". . . the pressure of important matters there demands my return ... I leave with a feeling that we have met in an atmosphere of genuine cooperation." Then he was gone.

He went back to a Washington that had shaken off the Red jitters born of the Colombian uprising. Though Latin America has more than half a million Communists, 260,000 of them hard-core militants, many a Latin American government now has the Reds on the run:

In Chile, President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, who came to power a year ago with Commie votes, last week asked his Congress to outlaw the party. He had already sent 600 leading Communists to the Chilean backlands, now had police out rounding up small fry.

In Brazil, where the big, 130,000-strong Communist Party is already outlawed, President Eurico Dutra asked his Congress to 1) hand civilian violators of national security over to military courts; 2) require loyalty pledges from all government employees. A wave of Communist-led strikes, railway sabotage and an explosion in a military arsenal that killed 32 had Brazilians worried. But in the last fortnight, police had rounded up 300 comrades, including the biting & scratching sister of Leader Luis Carlos Prestes. Brother Luis, who had been in hiding for months, was reported to have escaped to neighboring Uruguay. If he had, the Uruguayans did not know it.

In Cuba, which has the largest (152,000) Communist Party in Latin America, the government has recently pried Communists out of control of most labor unions. Last week a platoon of husky maritime police marched down to the Havana docks, ejected the toughest leader of them all: sullen, 6-ft. Stevedore Boss Aracelio Iglesias.

In Argentina, President Juan Domingo Peron's truce with the Communists seemed to be about over. Police raided the fellow-traveling Union of Argentine Women, hauled 92 off to jail. Thirty-one Greek sailors were deported for spreading the party line among Buenos Aires' Greek colony.

In Ecuador, outraged residents of Quito awoke one morning last week to discover on their walls: "Death to Yankee imperialism--Viva Russia--Yesterday Bogota, tomorrow Quito!" Beneath was scrawled the hammer & sickle. Ecuador's 2,500 Communists denied responsibility, but the government, deep in a political campaign and fearful that inflammatory Colombia might set off sparks in neighboring Ecuador, closed the northern boundary and set up special police patrols in some cities. Would there be a.revolution? "Of course," was the cynical answer of President Carlos Julio Arosema, "there has to be one. There are three candidates for President, and only one can win." None of the candidates was a Communist.

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