Awakening

The crash of falling governments had rudely reminded the U.S. State Department of an unpleasant fact: something was radically wrong with its Latin American policy. In eight weeks, a succession of military coups had toppled three governments, threatened two others; until last week the U.S. had failed to react.

Then from the White House came the first acknowledgement of trouble; a firm order that recognition of the military junta ruling Venezuela must be held up. Meanwhile, U.S. ambassadors in Latin capitals were instructed to ask advice from the governments to which they were accredited on how best to buttress democracy in the hemisphere.

A Friendly Climate. Busy with the problems of Europe and the cold war, the State Department all but swept Latin America's problems under the rug. The tightly integrated policy of Good Neighbor days had been disposed of in the same way. The constant plugging of democracy (a campaign backed up by U.S. dollars) had been cut to ribbons. With neglect, Latin America's frail democracies tended to wither, and U.S. prestige sank.

Latin American policy, once a major item on the White House agenda, was left largely to the direction of 45-year-old Paul Daniels, head of the State Department's Office of American Republics Affairs. Twenty years as a foreign service officer had made stocky, Andover-and-Yale-bred Paul Daniels an expert on the mechanics of diplomacy, but it had also made him cautious. Moreover, long years in Latin America had made him something less than optimistic about democracy's chances there.

When Daniels took over ARA a little over a year, ago, he argued for recognition of "Tacho" Somoza's puppet President Victor Roman y Reyes in Nicaragua. Daniels realistically pointed out that nonrecognition had failed to weaken Tacho's grip on his volcano-ridged nation, and had put the U.S. into the position of refusing to recognize an established fact.

A Further Step. Daniels carried this line of reasoning a step further at last April's Bogota conference. Supported by Argentina, he advanced the doctrine of continuous recognition. The doctrine, adopted as Resolution 35, bound the conference's members to renounce recognition as a weapon in international politics. Recognition of Nicaragua followed.

When the Peruvian government of President Jose Luis Bustamante was overthrown last October, Daniels lost little time in applying Resolution 35. When the U.S. recognized the military regime of General Manuel Odria, militarists up & down the hemisphere figured that they had a green light. Three days later, the Venezuelan army ousted President Romulo Gallegos. Chile had already squelched a military plot; Costa Rica was now invaded from Nicaragua. Last week, Guatemala's liberal government was on the alert for a new move--the second in three weeks--by the military. In neighboring El Salvador, military men knocked over the regime of bumbling Salvador Castaneda Castro.

Meanwhile, the Council of the Organization of American States had met in an emergency session to consider the invasion of Costa Rica. Daniels was the U.S. representative. He dragged his feet until convinced that enthusiasm for the newly ratified Rio pact was general and genuine.

A First Test. At week's end Daniels was in Costa Rica as U.S. representative of the O.A.S.'s four-man investigating commission. Despite his lack of enthusiasm, the new peace machinery seemed certain to pass its first test impressively--so impressively, in fact, that Acting Secretary of State Lovett considered urging the O.A.S. to set up a similar system for consultation among the American republics on concrete measures to support democratic governments before they fall.

The U.S. had at least faced up to its responsibilities. As moral leader and chief architect of the hemispheric security system, it could no longer afford such lazy concepts as "automatic" recognition. Neither could it afford to wreck the hemispheric system by a return to the days of the Big Stick. Between the two extremes, by collective action with its neighbors, the solution might be found.-

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