Agenda: Trouble

In a candid bid for new ideas on U.S. policy toward Latin America, President Eisenhower last week appointed a six-man National Advisory Committee on Inter-American Affairs, to be headed by Ike's brother Milton, head of Johns Hopkins University and longtime presidential watchdog on Latin American affairs. The President acted in the wake of worsening relations with Panama and Cuba.

Trading Notes. Never before had a country off U.S. shores been as unfriendly as Louisiana-sized Cuba, which engaged the U.S. in full-scale diplomatic debate, taking obvious relish in every word. Off the presses of the Cuban Ministry of State rolled a 14-page color pamphlet, loaded with "atrocity" pictures and designed to prove that the U.S. was responsible for "bombing and strafing" Havana.

The pamphlet, referring to last month's unarmed leaflet-dropping run to Havana from Florida by Castro's ex-Air Force Chief Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, went out in more than 100,000 English-and Spanish-language copies for worldwide distribution. "Inaccurate, malicious and misleading," answered an official U.S. note, "An offensive brochure." The Castro lies served the Communist purpose well. "When, at last, will the Yankees stop the bombings?" sighed Pravda.

In reply to the U.S. protest, Cuban Minister of State Raul Roa delivered an 18-page "white paper," rewriting history, charging economic aggression and warning that Cuba will buy arms and planes "from whoever may be willing to supply them," i.e., Russia, if need be. He patted Cuba's new government on the back for "unequaled sportsmanship" in remaining friendly to the U.S. people, recounted "sacrifices" Cuba had made, e.g., selling sugar at low prices to the U.S. during two world wars. He brushed off Cuba's expropriation of U.S. property as involving only "transitory interests" of a "small group" of U.S. citizens.

Spreading Fever. A secondary imminent problem for the Eisenhower committee to consider is Panama. There last week the government went gunning for Canal Zone Governor William E. Potter, U.S. Army Major General on active service, who a fortnight ago firmly put down riots aimed at raising the Panamanian flag over the 10-by 50-mile zone. The U.S. reply to a demand for Potter's removal: a flat no.

Beyond Cuba and Panama experts worry that next February's eleventh Inter-American Conference in Ecuador may bring a Communist-inspired anti-U.S. outbreak like the riots in Bogota in 1948. But the U.S. is by no means isolated and embattled. Major hemisphere nations, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, have friendly and responsible governments and people. Such authentically liberal chiefs of state as Alberto Lleras Camargo of Colombia and Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela are increasingly wondering about Castro. Betancourt fortnight ago barred a visit by the Cuba revolution's foremost proCommunists: Majors Raul Castro and Ernesto ("Che") Guevara.

One friendly critic of the U.S., Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek, declared bluntly last week that the U.S. had already forgotten the "warning" of last year's anti-U.S. riots, which "presented us to the world as a continent divided by hate and resentment." The new committee constituted notice of intent to take the warning to heart.

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