Welcome, "Tacho"

The U.S. had come to the end of a policy. At Bogota, the American nations had agreed to junk the old practice of not recognizing dictatorial or unpopular governments. Last week the U.S. (and Colombia) recognized the sovereign state of Nicaragua, ruled over by smirking, slippery Dictator Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza.

Chiefly responsible for this new diplomatic tack was 44-year-old Paul Daniels, the State Department's Director for American Republic Affairs. From long experience, Daniels had concluded that the policy of ignoring de facto governments was silly: it was a relic of the days of kingdoms and duchies; in today's world, nonrecognition, or the threat of it, frightened no one. Moreover, recognition or no, trade and communication between nations always seemed to continue; it was better to have an ambassador on hand to supervise them.

Whether or not Diplomat Daniels was right (some underlings in State and sev eral Latin American diplomats thought he wasn't), the unappetizing fact was that a dictator had been given fresh prestige at a time when pressures from his democratic Central American neighbors (TIME, May 10), had begun to threaten his 16-year reign.

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