Alianza Si', Progreso No

It was just a year ago at a White House reception for Latin American diplomats that President Kennedy announced his Alianza para el Progreso. It was to be a vast, cooperative drive to lift Latin America's 200 million people out of misery--and out of the clutches of Castro and Communism. Under the Alliance, U.S. aid to Latin America in all its forms--grants, loans, Food for Peace--would be channeled through one Alianza clearinghouse, and would be matched by Latin American reform and selfhelp. This week, on its first anniversary, Kennedy's Alliance for Progress is hardly off the ground. It faces sharp questioning in Congress when it comes up soon for new appropriations.

Chief complaint: so far, the Alliance runs only one way; in effect, the U.S. foots the bill while Latinos drag their feet.

Doers & Do-Littles. In the first year, the U.S. has dispensed more than $1 billion in loans and commitments (see chart ) and has promised $20 billion in a decade.

Clinics, schools, low-cost houses, highways and water systems are under way.

The reaction of the 19 Latino governments participating (Cuba is boycotting the program) has so far not been so spectacular. Despite Kennedy's warning that loan priorities will depend on "demonstrated readiness to make institutional improvements that promise lasting social progress." only one-third--Mexico. El Salvador, Costa Rica, Colombia. Venezuela.

Argentina. Uruguay--appear embarked on anything like the kind of painful land, tax and other reforms needed to reconstruct their societies. One of the shiniest performers is tiny El Salvador, which, under the prodding of a reform-minded military man. Colonel Julio Rivera, is loosening the control of "the 14," a group of land and banking families who have ruled the country since Spanish colonial days.

A second, bigger group of countries--Guatemala, Honduras. Panama. Brazil, Chile, Bolivia. Peru. Ecuador, and the restless post-Trujillo Dominican Republic --are talking reform. But only a few are anywhere near the take-off point. One is Chile. Last week, with the treasury nearly bare. Chile welcomed a blue-ribbon U.S.

Alliance team, handed over an impressive, ten-year master development plan. A promise of land reform (now under discussion in the Chilean Congress) and tax reform produced a counterpromise by the U.S. of $350 million worth of help over the next five years.

A third category is the minority of surviving dictatorships who are doing nothing to reform--Haiti, where ruthless Franc,ois Duvalier continues to rule a police state; Paraguay, commanded by a jack-booted artilleryman named General Alfredo Stroessner. and Nicaragua, administered by two efficient sons of the assassinated dictator Anastasio Somoza.

The situation has some U.S. Congress men on the warpath. Louisiana Representative Otto Passman, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Aid. last month denounced a White House request for $3 billion to finance the Alliance for the next four years as "asinine." U.S. Alliance Director Teodoro Moscoso. who bossed Puerto Rico's successful self-help program, admits: "You can hardly expect U.S. taxpayers, already heavily burdened, to help underwrite development programs in countries where a few privileged people are virtually free from taxation." In recent months, U.S. lawmakers have journeyed to Latin America to see for themselves. Arkansas' Senator John McClellan found "an attitude of waiting for Uncle Sam to take the lead."

U.S. businessmen complain that the Kennedy Administration is ignoring the essential role of private enterprise in Alliance development, even though it talks of both "public and private" capital. New U.S. private investment in Latin America, apparently because of fears of more Castros. last year fell to a rock-bottom low of $90 million, down from $540 million in 1959.

Prodders In. Three weeks ago. President Kennedy called in his Latin America advisers, asked how the Alianza was faring, and bristled when he was told that it was barely airborne. Kennedy ordered his No. 1 Latin America troubleshooter, Richard Goodwin, 30. who wrote last year's presidential Alianza speech, but otherwise had no previous familiarity with Latin America, to be trail boss for the New Frontiersmen in speeding the program. Last week the President fired Goodwin's nominal boss. Robert Woodward, a genial career diplomat who was just too slow for Kennedy. In his place as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, the President named a career bureaucrat. Edwin M. Martin, 53. who has a grounding in economics.

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