Customers' Man

In Washington on sick leave, well-tailored William Pawley dropped in on Secretary Marshall. Bluntly, the U.S. Ambassador to Brazil told his boss that things were going badly in Latin America. The latinos were sore because they felt that the U.S. was neglecting them in favor of Europe, and something ought to be done to straighten things out before next month's Pan American Conference in Bogota.

Secretary Marshall's answer was prompt. "O.K., Bill," he said to Pawley. "You're elected."

Cutting short his sick leave, Bill Pawley went to work. His first step was to document the big fact that the U.S. had failed to get across to latinos: that ERP means U.S. dollars in the Latin American pocket. Assuming that Congress approves the ERP program of buying in Latin America, the latinos will be invited to ship something like $1 1/2 billion of foodstuffs and raw materials to Europe by July 1, 1949. Bill Pawley could point to this breakdown:

P: $282,100,000 for 1,585,000 tons of bread grains, mainly from Argentina. This figure was based on the hope that Argentina would stop charging $5 a bushel for wheat. In a special press conference last week, President Peron himself threw down any such hope. Argentina had to have such a price, he explained, because half its wheat went as a gift to countries (e.g., France, Italy and Spain) that cannot pay. Argentina's net return was thus more like half the $5 price.

P: $1,151,100,000 for other grains, meat fats and oils, mainly from Argentina and Uruguay.

P: $136,600,000 for coffee.

P: $40,600,000 for rice.

P: $26,400,000 for nitrates.

P: $74,000,000 for beans, fresh fruit and cocoa.

P: $267,900,000 for sugar.

Even such sums, spent for agriculture, would probably not satisfy the Latin Americans, who also want dollars to help them build industry. In preparation for Bogota, therefore, Bill Pawley hoped to sell the U.S. State Department the Colombian scheme for a U.S.-financed Inter-American bank to make hemispheric-development loans.

That was a big program to sell to Washington in the six weeks before Bogota. Bill Pawley thought he could do it.

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