Launching the Alliance

I hope all of us will not get so occupied with other matters occurring in this hemisphere that we forget that perhaps one of the most significant meetings in the history of the Western Hemisphere in this century is now taking place.

--John F. Kennedy, Aug. 10, 1961

In the U.S., anger and frustration over the Havana-bound skyjackers captured the headlines. But it was at Punta del Este, 65 miles from the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, that Latin American news for years to come was being shaped. With urgency and hope, 440 delegates from 21 American republics met last week in the most difficult task ever faced by an inter-American assembly: to hammer into shape President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. If they succeeded, the conference would launch an immense cooperative pull to lift the face of Latin America. If they failed, chaos or Communists awaited several of the nations.

The basic ingredient of the alliance was pledged early in the session, when U.S. Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon offered "at least $20 billion" in aid to Latin America during the next ten years. Much of the money, said Dillon, would be advanced in long-term loans "at very low or zero rates of interest." Dillon made it clear to even the most sensitive Latin ears that he was putting forward "a plan for debate, not a condition prior to aid." U.S. dollars were only one part of a program that called for land and tax reforms, the creation of a Latin American common market, a solid increase in production and exports. The goal: to raise Latin American per-capita income by "at least 2.5%" a year, to encourage each country to provide better health facilities, housing and education.

Coffee & Teachers. The U.S. was prepared to give immediate help. To control slipping coffee prices and bedeviling surpluses, the U.S. will join a new international coffee agreement to prevent further price declines. It also recommended a $900 million fund to help Latin American nations through dangerous periods when exports drop far behind imports, and promised to finance an inter-American teacher task force against illiteracy.

With the broad outline, the delegates found little to bicker about. The loudest bickering came from Cuba's scraggle-bearded economic czar. Che Guevara. Che, author of one of the basic Communist treatises on guerrilla warfare, proved himself a troublesome parliamentary guerrilla. He began by objecting to "almost all the affirmations'' made in the opening round of speeches, once stormed in a blind rage out of the conference hall--and into the ladies' rest room. (Said a Guatemalan delegate: "If there were not a halo of blood surrounding this flabby Cantinflas. he would actually be amusing.") Che's own opening speech was a 2 1/2-hour diatribe against the U.S. (which he called "the monster"). Then he turned around, became the picture of reason and light, said that Cuba still considered itself a member of the American community, and demanded to know whether the Castro regime would get some of the aid money. When the U.S. declined to commit itself. Che went one step farther, announced he might even be willing to sign the Alliance for Progress agreement. "if it does not go openly against Cuba."

Secret Caucus. The single major stumbling block to the final success of the conference was a touchy technical issue: how to review each nation's plans and allocate the Alliance for Progress funds. The original suggestion called for a board of seven "wise men" to sit in permanent session. The plan appealed to the small nations, but was violently opposed by Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Chile, who looked upon the board as an attempt to jeopardize their sovereign right to plan their own economic development. Caught in the middle, the U.S. delegation moved quickly to find a compromise, arranged a secret caucus with Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Mexico.

Breaking only for sandwiches and coffee, the delegates worked 20 hours round the clock, arrived at a complex formula that would limit the powers of the review board, cut its membership to six--three permanent experts and three others chosen to study each application. For a while, the Argentines still held out, at one point threatened to refuse to join the alliance if the board was included in the plan. But after checking with Buenos Aires,*the Argentine delegates finally agreed to a new compromise: a nine-man board of advisers that could criticize but not act. As the U.S. delegation sat conspicuously in the background, Argentina, Brazil, Chile. Mexico and Peru got to work on the final draft of a proposal officially launching the Alliance for Progress.

*Where President Arturo Frondizi in familiar style, last week summarily put down a vest-pocket revolt of 150 ultranationalists without firing a shot, thus surviving his 3Oth crisis in 39 months in office.

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