What Should the U.S. Do?

President James Monroe's 1823 warning to the Holy Alliance, led by Russia and France, was the voice of a brash new nation, and it served to fence Europe out of Latin America. "We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portions of this Hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety," said the Monroe Doctrine. In exercise of the pre-eminence that it thus conferred on itself, the U.S. subsequently--and mistakenly, as 1960 sees it--intervened freely in Latin American affairs, by force in seven countries. Last week, in the wake of modern Russia's deepest penetration of the Hemisphere--the broad trade-and-aid agreement with Fidel Castro's Cuba--thoughts of Monroe and of intervention were inevitably voiced in Washington.

Fears. Part of the price of Castro's $100 million in Russian assistance will probably be a flourishing traffic in Soviet technicians to get machinery running.

Another part is Castro's agreement to "collaborate actively" with Russia in the United Nations, breaking the Hemisphere's fac,ade of cold-war solidarity.

(Snorted one Latin American President: "Can you imagine what would happen to my government if I signed on the dotted line to support U.S. policies in return for U.S. aid?") Secretary of State Christian Herter described Cuba frankly as a "deteriorating situation." A flustered Congress, turning to the only weapon it had, considered more than 60 bills designed to clip Castro's wings by cutting back his 300,000-ton quota on the high-priced U.S. sugar market.

Raw sugar sells on the world market for 3-c- per lb., on the protected U.S. market for more than 5-c-.* The quota system, designed to protect U.S. growers and support traditional trading partners, including Cuba, nets Castro an outright subsidy of more than $100 million a year, or 4% of Cuba's gross national product of $2.6 billion. Sugar producers such as Brazil and Mexico argue that this boon should go to friends of the U.S. rather than to Castro's Cuba. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Robert Hill, long an advocate of a get-tough line with Castro, flew back to Washington last week and drew loud cheers in the Mexican press by lobbying in Congress for a bigger sugar share for Mexico, at Cuba's expense.

But a quota cut, while damaging Cuba's economy and discommoding Castro, might seem a petty action for a great power, and probably an ineffective one as well. The State Department would like to get the issue away from Congress through a bill giving the White House the power to change quotas at will. Congress shows little interest in waiving its power, but Administration pressure can probably stave off any drastic changes in the sugar law this year.

"Friends." Herter last week pointed out that the U.S. has treaty obligations "not to use political or economic means to intervene in any of the countries of Latin America." President Eisenhower, at his last press conference before flying off to four Latin American countries, added: "We must not forget that we want to be dealing in such a way that the Cuban people, who are our friends, are treated justly." The Cuban people, under Castro, are only as friendly as Castro's latest anti-U.S. TV tirade has left them. But treating them in the awareness that historically they have been friends, and will be again, is the only seemly posture for a nation grown too powerful to be brash.

One embarrassing task for Washington last week was an apology to Castro. After a Florida-based Piper Comanche crashed on a bombing run over a central Cuban sugar mill, killing the two U.S. mercenaries aboard, Secretary Herter sent his "sincere regrets that the plane managed to escape the vigilance of our intensified airfield patrols." President Eisenhower gave the FBI authority for on-the-spot seizure of any suspicious arms caches that might be bound for the Caribbean. Castro used pieces of the plane as props in an irate TV speech, but did not charge that U.S. authorities knew about or consented to the clandestine flights. "They had nothing to gain," Castro said.

-- Refined sugar retails for about 13-c- per lb. in the U.S. and for 70-c- in Russia, where the government's yearly profit from sugar sales is greater than its total annual investment in all agriculture. The world's greatest sugar producer (7,000,000 tons), Russia may well use the 1,000,000 tons yearly it has agreed to buy from Cuba for reexport through satellite countries.

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