Big Roundup
First move in corralling the 21 American republics into a homogenous herd is to remove suspicions inevitably occurring because 7,000 miles and many conflicting aims separate the U.S. and Argentina. Uppermost in the minds of foreign ministers packing last week for the consultative conference in Rio de Janeiro Jan. 15 was the question: "Would the cowboy and the gaucho get together?"
What the U.S. wants from Argentina and all the Americas is threefold: 1) speedy production of critical materials such as tin and rubber; 2) complete military cooperation with U.S. use of bases at strategic points; 3) a crackdown on Axis propagandists and German business firms "bootlegging" war materials through the Atlantic blockade. To get these, the U.S. has dollars, ships, markets and World War II's realism to bargain with in the smoke-filled committee rooms of the Itamaraty Palace at Rio.
From her own viewpoint, Argentina's problems are as pressing: 1) how can she preserve her economy when canceled European markets leave millions of pesos worth of wheat, corn and linseed rotting in fields or warehouses? 2) will military collaboration provide her with U.S. planes, ammunition and anti-aircraft guns for her own defense?
Governed under "state-of-siege" orders by Acting President Ramon S. Castillo, on lines of thinking geared to those of Senator Burton Wheeler before Pearl Harbor, Argentina acted with Delphic ambiguity last week, secretly instructed its delegates to act "in accordance with the principles which Argentina has always upheld in its international policies." But Argentina moved closer toward collaboration by "recalling" her Ambassador from Berlin, and announced that Germany had recalled Ambassador Baron Edmund von Thermann,* whose persona has long been non grata with Argentina's pro-Ally Chamber of Deputies.
Trying to torpedo the conference, other Axis agents threw a spasm, of hate and distrust over the Americas. In most cases they had their ears pinned back:
> Brazilian state police arrested 16 booted Storm Troopers in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where German secret societies were driven underground in 1937. In the state of Sao Paulo a mob lynched a Japanese who ran amuck upon learning Japanese bank funds were frozen. Other Japs, heavily armed, revolted, were put down by a cavalry regiment and state troops.
> Uruguay raided 30 Axis-controlled political and military organizations, including "The Tenth Alpine Regiment" which flaunted a motto: "From the Alps to the Andes."
> In Mexico, bulky Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and consul general, celebrated the New Year with friends at the resort town of Cuernavaca. As the group drank up to "Viva Roosevelt" and "Viva Camacho," ten heel-clicking Germans Heil-Hitlered, split open Neruda's head with a blackjack. Next day five Mexican politicos formally offered to duel with the Nazis.
> San Salvador ousted Baron de Muzi-Falconi, Italian charge d'affaires, who scuttled for Guatemala City and a reported preconference rendezvous with the remaining Axis agents in Central America.
> Guatemala confiscated its German-owned railway, heard with satisfaction that Dr. Otto Reinebeck, German Minister to Central America who tried to torpedo the Havana Conference in 1940 and who was expelled from headquarters in Guatemala, had been met when his ship docked in Brooklyn, escorted to a reunion with other German diplomats at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
> Ecuador bounced Gestapoman Walter Guisse, announced German Archeologist Franz Spillman was a spy who had taken refuge with the Peruvian Army.
> Cuba, which has not yet enforced earlier decrees against Japanese and Italians, issued a new decree for internment of 4,084 German residents.
> Nicaragua suppressed all ship news, issued Government news bulletins to quiet such rumors as one that 50,000 Japanese troops had landed in Central America.
* His bags were shipped on the S.S. Cabo de Bueno Esperanza. Why he did not accompany them was not revealed.
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