On with the Task

For a few hours last week, as the Cuban crisis blotted out everything else, all work came to a standstill at the long-awaited Mexico City meeting of hemisphere finance ministers on the state of the Alliance for Progress. The session was less than two days old when President Kennedy sent an emergency message summoning home U.S. Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon. Before he left, Dillon did put the Latins at ease on one point. The U.S., he said, was prepared to replenish the coffers of the Inter-American Development Bank, would also provide $1 billion in aid next year to match the $1 billion earmarked last year.

Without Dillon the delegates got down to work analyzing the Alliance's disappointing first year. Many Latin American nations complained that the U.S. was quick to commit funds but slow to disburse them. In a spirit of selfcriticism, they also noted their own shortcomings. Only half of the countries had completed or were close to completing development plans, either short-or long-range. Eight countries had adopted tax reforms, five others had modified their tax systems; the rest were simply conducting studies. Large-scale housing is still in the planning stage; improved schooling is hardly under way; the shortage of doctors and nurses is still acute.

For one of the most general complaints about the Alliance--that it fails to reach down to Latin America's impoverished masses--the delegates proposed that two top Latin American statesmen be chosen to work independently, and, as their imaginations dictate, to spread the Alianza's message. Favored candidates: Colombia's ex-President Alberto Lleras Camargo and Brazil's ex-President Juscelino Kubitschek.

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