Zippity-Do-Dah!

To the White House last week went diplomats from 21 hemisphere nations for a little chat with President Johnson about the Alliance for Progress. They departed wondering why anyone had ever doubted L.B.J.'s consuming interest in the Alianza.

In three hours of zippity-do-dah, he promised--without quite saying how--"twice as much action, twice as much accomplishment" in the next year, reported that loans ($430 million since December) were already flowing at almost twice the year-ago rate, personally signed twelve new loans worth $46 million. After the formalities, Johnson conducted his guests into the Cabinet Room for tea and another demonstration of maximum effort. When an ambassador wondered why Congress was holding up a U.S. appropriation to the World Bank's International Development Association, Johnson grabbed a phone to call White House Legislative Aide Larry O'Brien: "What's going on with fhe IDA bill? How many votes have we got?" Said Johnson, turning to the diplomats: "There's been a lot of talk about ideals in the Alianza. We are going to put those ideals into action."

Next day the House passed the $312 million IDA bill, and L.B.J. gave the Latinos something else to cheer about. Into Teodoro Moscoso's old job as U.S. representative to the Inter-American Committee (CIAP), which guides the Alianza, went Walt Whitman Rostow, 47, chairman of the State Department Policy Planning Council and a man with both the prestige and power to cut through the Alianza's bureaucratic underbrush. The total performance left Peru's Ambassador Celso Pastor bedazzled. "This marks the beginning of a new era," he said. Or as one Administration adviser put it: "Latin Americans are learning that corn pone can be as nourishing as crepes suzette."

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