South of the Adjusted Border

With Orwellian thoroughness, fumigation squads swept through airport, hotel, plazas, streets. Tractors and crews toiled round the clock clearing debris from recent mud slides. Every stray dog was rounded up and vaccinated against rabies. Squatters' shacks along the river banks were uprooted and flowers were planted in their stead. Two hundred Mexican and American secret service men patrolled. Four battalions of Mexican troops moved in to help. Twenty thousand photographs of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gustavo Diaz Ordaz festooned the town.

Working Vacation. The activity left scarcely a resident of the picturesque Sierra Madre village of Puerto Vallarta unaffected. Not since Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor visited there for the filming of Night of the Iguana in 1963 had Puerto Vallarta known such excitement. As volunteers of all ages and both sexes helped patch holes in the streets, Governor Francisco Medina Ascencio, of the state of Jalisco, purred: "The people realize that this is the greatest opportunity they have to publicize their town."

En route to his third working vacation of the summer at San Clemente, Calif., the President was making an end run south of the border to see Lame Duck President Diaz Ordaz. The matters under discussion never seemed to acquire the importance White House aides tried to assign them.

Item: The Presidents announced agreement to a formula for settling boundary disputes along the meandering Rio Grande River, whose shifting course at times changes the nationality of small parcels of land. The essentially technical agreement had already been worked out at the ministerial level. If fewer than 100 people are involved in a future shift, the country losing acreage may restore the river to its previous course at its own expense. If more occupants or large plots are involved, the nations will jointly restore the channel. Tiny islands that have been under disputed sovereignty were apportioned--182 to Mexico, 137 to the U.S. About a dozen families living within the Presidio-Oji-naga tracts will be accorded dual U.S.Mexican citizenship.

Item: A new agreement on controlling the salinity of Colorado River water reaching Mexico from the U.S.--to replace an existing pact expiring in November--was discussed, but no agreement was reached.

Item: Mexican feelings, ruffled when U.S. agents set up Operation Intercept last fall to stem the flow of narcotics from south to north, were soothed in a discussion of that topic.

Favorite Haunt. Actually, there were no compelling reasons for the trip. But Nixon, remarkably at ease, no doubt sensed an opportunity for some "happy diplomacy" in contrast to the ever-simmering Middle East and Indochina situations. There were other, largely personal, factors. Nixon had promised to resolve the border disputes before his friend Diaz Ordaz leaves office in December. And the President had expressed a sentimental desire to return to Mexico with Pat during their 30th anniversary year. The two honeymooned in Acapulco in 1940.

The presidential mood, in fact, currently tends very much to nostalgia and positivism. Before heading to Mexico, the Chief Executive flew to New York City for an off-the-record session with executives of the pro-Administration New York Daily News (see PRESS). Then the President indulged in some relaxed sidewalk handshaking. Next he feasted on striped bass roti, concombres an beurre, filet de boeuf poele Perigourdin, puree de haricots, pommes Anna and friandises--accompanied by wine and champagne--at a favorite old Manhattan haunt, La Cote Basque.

By week's end a cheerful Richard Nixon signaled clearly that hours spent with amiable editors and amigable Mexicans are so much to his liking that there will be encores of both. This week newspaper and broadcast editors from 13 Western states are to gather at San Clemente for presidential briefings. And on Sept. 3, Diaz Ordaz will be Nixon's guest at a dinner celebrating the California bicentennial. Mexicans--and the large Mexican-American voting populations of California and the Southwest --are sure to take note.

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