Neutralism Discarded

To remind President Eisenhower that Latin America considers itself a party to the Middle East crisis, Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek last week cabled Ike to say that Latin American participation in any U.N. summit conference is "reasonable, just and even indispensable." Kubitschek was putting himself squarely behind the U.S.; he did not cable the U.N. or Soviet Boss Khrushchev, and Panama and Colombia are already on the Security Council.

More than anything else last week, Kubitschek's cable dramatized his strong new stand as a pro-West world statesman. Until recently, he had taken pains to avoid offending his country's politically powerful supernationalists. and his government seemed to be drifting into murky neutralism. But after U.S. Vice President Nixon was stoned in Lima and Caracas, Kubitschek wrote personally to Ike to urge a rebuilding of Pan Americanism. He sponsored an International Investments Conference at Belo Horizonte, accepted resignations of several foot-dragging Cabinet members, replaced them with men dedicated to sensible collaboration with foreign capital.

Before sending his cable, Kubitschek called together 400 top-ranking military men to explain Brazil's relations with the U.S. "We recognize," he said, "the heavy burden borne by the U.S. in the common battle for the defense of the West and our civilization's highest values. We must maintain with the great North American republic the indestructible relations which have become our common heritage and which must not be weakened."

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