Time to Rebuild

Once burned and now doubly shy. the U.S. State Department last week postponed the six-country* Central American fact-finding trip of Johns Hopkins University President Milton Eisenhower scheduled to start June 15. The State Department explained that "it has not been possible to schedule mutually convenient dates," but Presidential Press Secretary Jim Hagerty admitted to newsmen that Ike himself had taken a personal hand in delaying his brother's trip. Did the spit-and-stone attacks on Vice President Nixon in Lima and Caracas have anything to do with it? asked the reporters. "I have no knowledge on that,'' hedged Hagerty.

Signs of Hope. There was no doubt that the Nixon attacks had a great deal to do with it. Only a fortnight ago, Panamanian President Ernesto de la Guardia managed to halt antigovernment student riots that had been going on for ten days. And only six weeks ago, demonstrating students invaded the U.S. Canal Zone and hoisted Panamanian flags to dramatize sovereignty claims. In Guatemala Communists, once held firmly in check by the late President Carlos Castillo Armas, are again able to cause trouble.

Despite the postponement, there were heartening signs last week that U.S.-Latin American relations are making a healthy readjustment from the sense of outrage and , shock that sprang from the violent attacks on the U.S. Vice President. Puerto Rico's Governor Luis Munnoz Marin put the Nixon incidents in perspective by urging the U.S. to "take a new look at its

Latin American policy without being prejudiced by the barbaric action taken by small, violent minorities during the Vice President's trip. We should all be especially careful that prejudice is not developed against the people of Venezuela because a minority produced the worst offense.''

Something Done. Last week Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek echoed Munnoz' thesis in a letter to Ike. The language was that of diplomacy, but the meaning was plain: "The widespread reaction of aversion on the part of the governments and of public opinion in the very nations in which occurred these reprovable acts against the serene and courageous person of the Vice President constitutes a proof that such demonstrations proceeded from a factious minority. Nonetheless, it would be hardly feasible to conceal the fact that, before world public opinion, the ideal of Pan American unity has suffered serious impairment . . . In addressing these words to Your Excellency, my sole purpose is to acquaint you with my deep-seated conviction that something must be done to restore composure to the continental unity. I have no definite and detailed plans to that effect, but rather ideas and thoughts which I could confide to Your Excellency should an early opportunity to do so arise."

Ike was delighted with the Brazilian leader's frankness--so much so that he short-circuited the usual channels in answering such a letter, sat down and wrote out his own reply. Probable result: a gathering of the hemisphere's Foreign Ministers to hash out mutual headaches--plus an enthusiastic O.K. for a Dulles trip to Rio late this summer. Even as Ike wrote, the U.S. was preparing to end its isolation from one of Latin America's biggest problems--coffee booms and busts (see below). And at week's end Roy Rubottom, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, was appointed Ike's special envoy to carry his enthusiastic response from Washington to Rio.

*Guatemala, El Salvador. Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama.

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